Questions tagged [special-characters]

Use for questions concerning characters that either 1) are not individual letters, numbers, or punctuation symbols shown on the keys of your keyboard, or 2) are treated differently from their literal value in a "coding" situation, such as interpretation as wildcard or metacharacters.

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Removing blank data from cells in Excel

I have a file with 50000 rows and 500 columns approx. with data populated. Though half of the cells in the sheet seem blank but the file looks heavier (50mb) which should not be. When I count the ...
Irvin's user avatar
  • 53
0 votes
0 answers
513 views

How to find all hidden symbols on a keyboard?

OK I constantly see articles on how to type special characters using the character map or the codes or whatever ways. But often there is a way to type a symbol, but you just don't know under which key ...
Arturas M's user avatar
  • 187
1 vote
0 answers
65 views

Windows 10 utility to replace keyboard repeat with phone-style hold for special characters? [closed]

Is there any utility available for Windows 10 that would allow my to replace the default hold-to-repeat-character behavior with a phone-style (Android at least) hold-to-enter-special-character? I can'...
Colin Young's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Create custom alt + control keys in Windows 10

Is it possible to create custom keyboard shortcuts on Windows 10 to generate characters that aren't featuring on your keyboard ? In my case I often need the ß character but it's not featuring on my ...
smirnoff103's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
57 views

Is URL encoding guarranteed to output printable characters only?

I refer to the URL encoding used in Burp and in the browsers Is URL encoding guaranteed to output printable characters only?
TAbdiukov's user avatar
  • 132
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

Windows 10 Missing Left Double Quotation Mark Glyph in Character Map

This is so weird. I am simply trying to type an open double quotes symbol in Windows 10 that should look like this: Actually, I'm trying to replace wrongly interpolated quotes symbols in an ANSI ...
Eric Hepperle - CodeSlayer2010's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to pass unknown command line arguments containing special characters (bash)?

I am trying to figure out how to solve a problem with a "$" causing command expansion as part of a password field. How do you backslash the "$" when using command substitution (unknown) arguments? (i....
Harold's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Invalid pipe character in file name

I’m on Windows 7 Pro x64 and I’ve downloaded a file using Firefox and it’s named guerriére | warrior.PNG with a pipe character (|) in file name and I can’t find how to delete or rename it. Running ...
Ender-one's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

Command works locally but returns "event not found" when invoked with ssh

I want to check for read only file systems. I wrote this awk command and it works fine: awk '{ if ( $4 ~ /ro,/ && $2 !~ /sys/ ) {print $2} }' /proc/mounts I want to use this command with ssh....
arifisik's user avatar
  • 302
0 votes
0 answers
40 views

Save linux terminal content *as displayed* to file

I used screen -L to capture the output of an ipython session. ipython does a ton of munging of its output to allow for overwrites of the display in the terminal, so the file is full of control codes ...
elhefe's user avatar
  • 123
0 votes
2 answers
10k views

Umlaut characters using UK keyboard on Windows (no NumPad)

Several references describe using Alt combined with numeric keys (with NumLock on). Other references suggest using the United States International keyboard layout. But: Keyboard is UK (the US layout ...
AlainD's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
12k views

VNC Keyboard Mapping Mismatch

Background I am using a VNC Viewer to connect from my local client Windows 10 Home to a remote mac OS X El Capitan host. Unfortunately, on my remote desktop the key-to-character mappings are ...
Dendron's user avatar
  • 31
0 votes
2 answers
150 views

Word replace mechanism

I have a document in Word (Hebrew language). Many words in the document end with apostrophe (’), and I need to replace it with the character ('). However, when I"m trying to do so via the Word "Find ...
AsiB's user avatar
  • 1
0 votes
1 answer
227 views

NetTerm shows characters instead of lines

My issue is almost the same as Why does YaST now show lines as lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq? , but instead of PuTTY and YaST, I'm using NetTerm and MLS (= WMS). My lines are also shown in characters as you can ...
Robin Haes's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
166 views

CodeLite replacing accent by special characters

I'm using CodeLite to develop my PHP applications, but this one has the annoying tendency to replace all my accents with special characters (this one: � or others like é). But UTF-8 encoding is ...
Jérémy Sam's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
2k views

Cannot write character è

I have an English version of Windows 10 operating system with Hungarian keyboard. The general use of non-Hungarian Latin special characters (and I guess this is the same of all the Latin keyboards) is ...
Csaba Faragó's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
690 views

Can't copy file with double quotes - invalid argument or no such file

We've got an old system with a write protected (qstar tape) filesystem on it and I'm trying to copy all the files off there before it's canned. CentOS release 6.9 (Final) - 2.6.32-696.23.1.el6....
Smock's user avatar
  • 829
0 votes
1 answer
296 views

Cannot create new files with ":" in their filenames, but I have already 13300 of them that work fine (linux, ntfs partition)

I have a Windows 10 / Manjaro (4.19.32-1-MANJARO) dual boot. All my personal data is stored on an NTFS partition that I use in both systems. I have a project which involves pictures with some colons (...
hibol's user avatar
  • 3
2 votes
0 answers
25 views

Accents only work half the time

I've been having a very odd issue on an HP pavilion laptop running Windows 10 1903. When I press the accent keys (´/` and ~/^), followed by a letter ("a", for example), some times an accented letter ...
Tiago's user avatar
  • 256
2 votes
4 answers
7k views

How to type directly with keyboard the U+200C character?

How to type directly with keyboard the U+200C character in Notepad or other places... in Windows 8.1? (without depending on a certain font) I don't want to copy and paste ways. I don't want any ...
dave's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
0 answers
57 views

A quick tool for inputting many special characters? [closed]

You might be thinking that I can use a special keyboard layout or alt codes. However, they don't provide enough characters. Unicode alt codes in the other hand require knowing every single Unicode ...
Piotr Grochowski's user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
7k views

Excel adds quotation marks to the end of my formula

Excel automatically corrects my formula, saying "We found a typo in your formula and tried to correct it to:" =CONCAT(CHAR(34),A4,""":""",D4,"""") My original formula only has three quotation marks ...
Gabriel's user avatar
  • 21
1 vote
1 answer
148 views

LO Calc won't strip quotation marks from text

Since quotation marks serve a special function, treating them as a character requires workarounds. There are a number of standard methods, such as doubling the quotation mark or using CHAR(32), its ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.5k
1 vote
0 answers
1k views

Right-Alt modifier no longer works in most programs

I'm a programmer. You can guess I use the { } and [ ] characters a lot. I am on a French Canadian Keyboard, and I of course checked that this is till the case in the context of my issue. On this ...
Kaito Kid's user avatar
  • 153
1 vote
0 answers
1k views

How to search Windows Explorer for file names containing invalid characters?

I have downloaded over 10,000 files and need to move them to a different folder than my downloads folder. Unfortunately, these files have miscellaneous names, and some of them contain invalid ...
dchurchwell's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
123 views

Unable to input UTF-16 characters in firefox

I want to insert greek characters, via a keyboard mapping I've made, when working in firefox (and Jupyter Notebook). I am able to use ctrl+cmd+space to add characters like 𝝭 𝝭 MATHEMATICAL SANS-...
C.Buhl's user avatar
  • 141
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Can't delete folder in Windows 10 with special character

I have a similar problem as in Can't delete folder (in Windows 10) that contains special character in that I get the exact same error message when trying to delete a specific folder. From Can'...
Markus Lankeit's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
1k views

Japanese Keyboard: How do you use the symbols on the¥ key?

On a Japanese keyboard I can see that only the ¥ key has more than two Japanese symbols, i.e. ¥ , |, - and sometimes ¬. Which modifier keys (Shift, Alt, Ctrl etc.) do I need to press to get each of ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 111
1 vote
1 answer
299 views

Android/Linux: Delete multiple files containing the @, except for 2 files

I'm trying to delete with Terminal Emulator or Termux files located in /data/dalvik-cache/arm. I want to delete all files except for 2 of them: "system@[email protected]" and "system@framework@boot....
Alien's user avatar
  • 13
1 vote
1 answer
9k views

How to show special characters in filename in Windows

How can I inspect the characters of a file name in Windows 10 ? I have some files which contains some 'space' characters, and other who contain some 'non-breaking-space' characters. And maybe some ...
Pacopaco's user avatar
  • 185
2 votes
1 answer
12k views

Batch: How to echo a set /p with special characters into a file?

I'm working on a script where I have the following code: :top Echo Enter Message set /p msg=">" if "%msg%"=="C" goto cancel echo %msg% >> File.txt goto top :cancel I'm looking for a way ...
Mark Deven's user avatar
  • 1,618
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

curl / wget is adding an extra ^M when I append data to a file

Something is buzzing me about this. I'm trying to download two different hosts files into one, if I do this serperatly then everything is fine, but when I append the firs to the second a strange ...
AK_'s user avatar
  • 188
-2 votes
1 answer
80 views

Replace special chararcters in a 60MB file

I have a big text file. 200,000 lines. 60MB. I would like to replace : & -> & Ë -> Ë Ê -> Ê etc... Any simple idea please ? (Textpad or Notepad++?) Edit : ...
Jean Calmer's user avatar
6 votes
6 answers
33k views

Proper encoding for file names in zip archives created in Windows and unpacked in linux

I have problems with different charsets in Windows and Linux (Centos). I have files with special characters in their filenames from many different languages. The zip archive is generated under Win7 ...
Ole's user avatar
  • 61
2 votes
1 answer
3k views

How to use command prompt to delete file with special characters?

I found this answer on Server Fault, but it is nearly 10 years old and doesn't work anyway I have files with names like: AlchBagSquare_Black°.nif League-of-Legends-фэндомы-1759411.jpeg When I ...
oscilatingcretin's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
4k views

Nginx Rewrite Rule for Special Charachter

I have one URL as www.xyz.com/api/abcdefgh^ijklmn. I want to redirect this URL www.xyz.com/api/abcdefgh%5ijklmn. Can some one suggest what will be Nginx Redirect rule for this.
Saurabh Agrawal's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
945 views

Write windows alt characters in cmd

I want to write a non-space wrap (it's not a full space, just a tiny space alike character) ALT + 0157. The problem is in windows its ok I can rename a file and add that character to it but in cmd, it ...
Aria Fathi's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

Weird character causing error when trying to import Excel sheet

This character " " (which isn't visible once I save this comment). It looks like 2 brackets pushed together, touching to form a tall rectangle. [] An exported Excel sheet from Filemaker (old version)...
Adam White's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
3k views

MS Access won't display line breaks of existing data

I am creating an MS Access front end for data from somewhere else. In this case, it's a linked SQL Server table. The data is actually imported from a shared-hosting LAMP web server. It's the ...
Mike M's user avatar
  • 141
6 votes
2 answers
8k views

Why does Notepad++ display some Unicode characters as square?

It can display ₐ₊₋ but some other subscripts (like ₂ₙ) are converted to squares. When I copy that square and paste on here the problem disappears: ₂. Why is that? The file is encoded in UTF-8. FYI: ...
Ooker's user avatar
  • 2,041
10 votes
2 answers
18k views

How to enable Replace-as-you-Type on Windows (system-wide)

Windows Gurus, On the Mac OS I have many keyboard shortcuts set up to type strange characters, such as "\pi" types a PI symbol (π), or even emojis. There is a system pref. pane, next to the "...
Demis's user avatar
  • 406
1 vote
0 answers
759 views

Special characters don't appear in Word

I'm trying to display Cyrillic characters but I only get squares and other special characters. I enter them using Alt + keycode but it won't work. I tried going to Insert -> Symbols and they are ...
IP002's user avatar
  • 201
2 votes
2 answers
14k views

Shorter alternative for CHAR(9) (tab) in Excel formula

I need to add several tabs in my formula so that when pasted as text the values have tabs. I use CHAR(9) for each tab, but using multiple CHAR(9)s made my formula very long, which would reach over the ...
JAT86's user avatar
  • 211
0 votes
1 answer
663 views

windows batch complex -o parameter for youtube-dl - how to properly format?

The goal is a batch file which calls youtube-dl to save files to folders with this naming convention: chapter number[space]chapter name\playlist index[space]title.ext This attempt at passing an ...
FredThompson's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
226 views

Cannot write ă symbol in name during Windows 10 setup

I am starting a brand new PC with Windows 10 pre-installed for the very first time. Now I am stuck because I cannot write the user name with this special character ă. I try to use the Alt + ASCII code ...
Stefan Manuel Weissen's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
89 views

Typing special character in password on OS with default keyboard

I'm trying to log into my CentOS server using KVM. The OS has default keyboard (US one, I guess) and my password contains local character (this one) that is not avaliable in the US keyboard. How can I ...
adamczi's user avatar
  • 214
0 votes
2 answers
518 views

Why are extended ASCII values on my computer accurate until 188?

I want to be able to type special characters, and judging from this list, only from 0 to 188 (inclusive) do the characters I get out match whats on that site.
Derry's user avatar
  • 111
6 votes
3 answers
18k views

Trying to search filenames with special characters in windows explorer (Windows 10)

Through a very annoying person's mistake, thousands of my files have been copied, often multiple times. This has resulted in thousands of files named filename(2), filename(3), etc. My bright idea was ...
Sia's user avatar
  • 63
0 votes
1 answer
598 views

how to escape # in my expect scipt while calling password from another file

I have few queries in expect.. I'm using expect script and I need to pick the password from a different file.. 1) I'm able to do it.. but for one of my connection the password starts with # (hash ...
Arulanandam S's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
420 views

Why am I seeing this kind of weird emoji-like characters in web page

I'm getting these weird emoji-like characters when I see the official website of ballerinalang.com hosting by wso2.com Can anybody please tell me why am I seeing this kind of stuff? It's really ...
Code Bae's user avatar
  • 113