~ / insert / special-characterslesson 6/7

Characters your keyboard lacks: <C-k> and <C-v>

Type ©, é, ½ or → with digraphs, any character by its Unicode code, or a real tab.

?how it works

Digraphs are two-character nicknames for symbols: press <C-k>, then the two characters. They're designed to be guessable. For accents, the second character says which mark to add: ' acute, ! grave, : diaeresis, ? tilde, , cedilla. So e' is é, a! is à, u: is ü, n? is ñ and c, is ç.

A few more worth knowing: Co ©, TM ™, Eu €, Pd £, DG °, 12 ½, 2S ², -> →, OK ✓, *X ×. Typed the pair backwards? Vim tries the other order too. In Neovim, :digraphs lists them all.

For a character with no digraph, <C-v>u plus four hex digits inserts it by its Unicode code point: <C-v>u2714 is ✔.

<C-v> also inserts the next key literally. That's how you get a real tab with <C-v><Tab> when Tab inserts spaces, as it does in this editor (and in Neovim with expandtab set).

⌨keys

`<C-k>{a}{b}`	insert the digraph {a}{b}, e.g. e' → é
`<C-v>u{hex}`	insert a Unicode character by its 4-digit hex code
`<C-v>{key}`	insert the next key literally, e.g. a real tab
`<C-v>{decimal}`	insert a character by its decimal value (up to 255)

4 drills

Symbols by digraph: Add the symbol at the end of the line with a digraph. Here are the ones you need: DG °, Eu €, 2S ², TM ™, OK ✓.
Accents while typing: Finish the line by typing the last word. Use digraphs for the accented letters: u: ü, n? ñ, i: ï, c, ç, e' é.
Any character by its code: These symbols have no digraph. Insert each one by its code point with <C-v>u: ✔ is 2714, ✘ is 2718, ⚠ is 26a0, ⌘ is 2318, ♥ is 2665.
A real tab: <Tab> inserts two spaces in this editor, but Makefiles and TSV files need real tab characters. Insert them with <C-v><Tab>.

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