How do I type Unicode characters in Windows 7?

I agree. Character Map makes a notepad document unnecessary. But I'm still peeved about not being able to produce many of the characters. Wasn't there a registry setting in XP where you changed something like "HexNumber" or whatever (a string value) from 0 to 1? Did that actually allow you to make those characters with only the keyboard? And if so, how did it work? Anybody know?

-az

You could always find a macro utility and create keyboard macros (shortcuts) for the characters/strings you use regularly (although it's likely that you found a working solution for this months ago).

James

Sorry to revive this old thread, but the information given in it is actually incorrect. It is in fact possible to type any Unicode character directly from the keyboard in Windows 7. Azathoth remembered correctly about the registry key. Here is how to activate it:

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Input Method
3. If it doesn't exist, create a new string value named EnableHexNumpad
4. Set its value to 1
5. Log out and back in to apply the configuration

Now you can type any Unicode character by pressing and holding Alt, then typing a + followed by the hexadecimal Unicode (as displayed in Character Map as 'U+....', just leave out the U). Note that while for entering ASCII characters you must use the number pad keys, you must not use them for entering Unicode characters. It only works if you use the number keys above the letters. You can use the + key on the number pad though.

You may generate unicode characters on GTK applications (Pidgin e.g.) as follows CTRL+SHIFT+u, release all keys + type the unicode + type space. Example: Pi = ctrl+shift+u+03C0+space

Anamon said:

Sorry to revive this old thread, but the information given in it is actually incorrect. It is in fact possible to type any Unicode character directly from the keyboard in Windows 7. Azathoth remembered correctly about the registry key. Here is how to activate it:

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Input Method
3. If it doesn't exist, create a new string value named EnableHexNumpad
4. Set its value to 1
5. Log out and back in to apply the configuration

Now you can type any Unicode character by pressing and holding Alt, then typing a + followed by the hexadecimal Unicode (as displayed in Character Map as 'U+....', just leave out the U). Note that while for entering ASCII characters you must use the number pad keys, you must not use them for entering Unicode characters. It only works if you use the number keys above the letters. You can use the + key on the number pad though.

@Anamon I set the registry value as above, logged off, logged on. However, when I type the code, I don't get the intended character. For example, I want to type the "thinking face emoji" (Thinking Face Emoji ), whose code-point is U+1F914, so I do the following:
Hold Alt, type numpad +, 1, f, 9, 1, 4, release Alt (typing digits on the top row; not on the numpad).
Instead of the intended emoji 🤔 I get a strange Chinese symbol 樂.
Any ideas? 🤔

Ok, apparently this is not an issue with Windows 7 specifically, but even with Windows 10!
It turns out you can’t type 5-digit unicode characters in Windows 😮. See Unicode input - Wikipedia

My personal objective was to create some macros for my keyboard for typing some common emojis. I ended up using AutoHotKey, which can type all emojis without limitations. I set up some macros on my keyboard to type F13, F14, etc. AutoHotKey listens for that key and then types the corresponding emoji 🙂