Notepad++ inserting special Unicode characters in UTF-8

Question

What's the best ways to enter special Unicode characters into a Notepad++ document? Do I have to rely on the operating system (Windows)?

Looking for a see-and-click solution.

I can bring up the ASCII Insertion Panel with Edit | Character Panel — that works great — but it only has the 256 raw characters. In UTF-8 mode I'd like to have a similar feature for the full encoded set, e.g. the Greek alphabet, math symbols, etc. I don't want to have to use the numeric keypad. Similar question on SourceForge but no answer there either.

Answer 1

Set up a User Defined Command:

1. Select the Run menu then the Run... menuitem
2. Enter charmap
3. Click Save...
4. Enter a name to identify it, e.g. &charmap (the ampersand lets you specify C as the accelerator key, so Alt+R then C activate it, unless you have another command with the same accelerator key).
5. Optionally specify a keyboard shortcut to trigger it, e.g. ALT and Num +
6. Click OK

Now whenever you want to enter a character, either use the Run menu or shortcut/accelerator key to open Windows Character Map, and either pick one or more characters or search for it/them using its Unicode name in "Search for:", copy to the clipboard, close Character Map and paste in Notepad++.

Note that you have to be in a unicode format for the characters to display in Notepad++. This is done by going to the Format menu and selecting "Encode in UTF-8" or similar. Now you can paste in Greek letters, subscripts, etc. into Notepad++.

Answer 2

And now for something completely different, a cut and paste gallery:

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☀☁☂☃☄☇☈☉☊☋☌☍☎☏☐☑☒☓【ツ】☚☛☜☝☞☟☠☡☢☣☤☥☦☧☨☩☪☫☬☭☮☯☸☹☺☻☼☽☾✁✂✃✄✆✇✈✉✌✍✎✏✐✑✒✓✔✕✖✗✘✙✚✛✜✝✞✟❍❏❐❑❒❖❘❙❚❡❢❣❤❥❦❧☿♀♁♂♃♄♅♆♇♈♉♊♋♌♍♎♏♐♑♒♓♨

ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρςστυφχψω

ϊϋόύώΪΫάέήίΰ

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a few Spaces (shown here between full blocks █ aka █)

██ _^(nothing)
█​█ _{^{​ ​ (zero width space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (hair space)}}
█ █ _{^{    (six-per-em space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (thin space)}}
█ █ _{^{    (narrow no-break space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (four-per-em space)}}
█ █ _{^{    (space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (no-break space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (three-per-em space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (en space)}}
█ █ _{^{      (em space)}}

Thanks to Maxitweet, Johannes Knabe, and copypastecharacter.

Tip: Ctrl +=zoom in. Ctrl 0=restore. (Mac ⌘ + and ⌘ 0.)

Answer 3

If you can write using the numeric keypad, that means you already have the code point for the character. Simply enter the hex value of the character(s) you want into Notepad++, select them, then open the menu: Plugins → Converter → HEX -> ASCII

Demonstration:

ASCII to HEX and HEX to ASCII Conversion Notepad++

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You can also get live results from the conversion panel

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Another way is using the HexEditor plugin, which was included in prior versions of Notepad++ but was removed recently. You can still install the plugin (or reactivate it if it was disabled) from the plugin manager with the caveat that sometimes it may be unstable.

This way you just select Plugins → Hex-Editor → View in HEX (or click the H button near the right of the menu bar) then type the UTF-8 bytes into the hex edit window. For example to get the string 🔙🔚🔛🔜 which is f0 9f 94 99 f0 9f 94 9a f0 9f 94 9b f0 9f 94 9c in UTF-8, just type those hex values in to dump column and switch back to normal text mode; you'll see those characters appear.

Note that it might be easier to work in UTF-16 or UTF-32 since getting UTF-8 encoding of a character manually is tricky. After all, just convert the file back to UTF-8 when saving

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It's also possible to use the Base64 converter for this purpose. Just select the base64 encoded string and select Plugins → MIME Tools → Base64 Decode

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If you just want to enter a few special characters frequently, it's better to use a macro.

First you need to get the base64 encoding of the string by pasting it to Notepad++ and then use the Base64 Encode feature. After that select Macro → Start recording, type the base64 string you get, select it and decode it as above. Now you can stop recording and save the macro with some descriptive name and possibly along with a shortcut. It's also possible to use the HEX → ASCII feature instead of base64

Later when you want to insert that string, just replay the macro

Edit:

The Conversion Panel works with Unicode only if you paste a Unicode character directly in the ASCII field

Answer 4

If you know some LaTeX, you can use this AutoHotKey script to convert LaTeX-like input to Unicode characters. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U will toggle it on (icon H on the taskbar) and off (icon S).

So for example, if you type

\alpha \beta \Gamma \infty ^1 _2 \Bbb{R}

the result will be αβΓ∞¹₂ℝ

Answer 5

The other answers are excellent. Some people may also be interested in this handy little gratis tool called "The UnicodeInput Utility":

https://www.fileformat.info/tool/unicodeinput/index.htm

If you know the hex value of the character, simply enter it into the tool's GUI and the corresponding Unicode character will get inserted for you. Simple and effective!