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Useful ALT codes to insert special characters in Excel

Jason Morrell

by Jason Morrell 
March 27, 2017

You can use Alt codes in programs like Excel and Word to insert special characters such as £ (Alt 0163), © (Alt 0169), ° [degree symbol] (Alt 0176) and ½ (Alt 0189)

You can also use Alt codes to insert commonly used non-English characters that are not found on a standard US keyboard such as á ("a" with acute accent - Alt 160), ö ("o" with diaeresis - Alt 148), ñ (enye - alt 164) and ç (cedilla - Alt 135)

1.  What is an ALT code?

Alt codes are based largely on ASCII, which stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". Each ASCII code represents a different character. It was developed in the sixties as a standard character set for computers and electronic devices. The character sets used in modern computers, in HTML, and on the Internet, are all based on ASCII.

2. How to insert an Alt code

Just hold the ALT key and type the appropriate 3 or 4 digit code. Here are some of the more useful ones.

You must use the numeric keypad on the right hand side of an extended keyboard. Make sure that the NumLock is switched on. If you use the numbers along the top of the regular keyboard, you will inadvertently activate a tab, command or Quick Access function.

3. Currency Symbols

£  ALT + 0163
¥  ALT + 0165
¢  ALT + 0162
  ALT + 0128

4. Legal symbols

©  ALT + 0169
®  ALT + 0174
§  ALT + 0167
  ALT + 0153

5. Mathematical symbols

°  ALT + 248 / 0176
¹  ALT + 251
²  ALT + 253
³  ALT + 252
÷  ALT + 246
¼  ALT + 0188
½  ALT + 0189
¾  ALT + 0190
±  ALT + 0241

6. Chevrons

«  ALT + 174 / 0171
»  ALT + 175 / 0187

7. Diacritical characters (non-English letters not found on a standard US keyboard)

à  ALT + 0195
å  ALT + 0229
Å  ALT + 143
å  ALT + 134
Ä  ALT + 142
ä  ALT + 132
À  ALT + 0192
à  ALT + 133
Á  ALT + 0193
á  ALT + 160
  ALT + 0194
â  ALT + 131
Ç  ALT + 128
ç  ALT + 135
É  ALT + 144
é  ALT + 130
È  ALT + 0200
è  ALT + 138

Ê  ALT + 202
ê  ALT + 136
Ë  ALT + 203
ë  ALT + 137
Ï  ALT + 0207
ï  ALT + 139
Î  ALT + 0206
î  ALT + 140
Í  ALT + 0205
í  ALT + 161
Ì  ALT + 0204
ì  ALT + 141
Ñ  ALT + 165
ñ  ALT + 164
Ö  ALT + 153
ö  ALT + 148
Ô  ALT + 212
ô  ALT + 147

Ō  ALT + 229
ō  ALT + 228
Ò  ALT + 0210
ò  ALT + 149
Ó  ALT + 0211
ó  ALT + 162
Ø  ALT + 157
Ü  ALT + 154
ü  ALT + 129
Û  ALT + 0219
û  ALT + 150
Ù  ALT + 0217
ù  ALT + 151
Ú  ALT + 233
ú  ALT + 163
ÿ  ALT + 152

8. What next?

I hope you found plenty of value in this post. I'd love to hear your biggest takeaway in the comments below together with any questions you may have.

Have a fantastic day.

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About Jason Morrell

About the author

Jason Morrell


Jason Morrell is a professional trainer, consultant and course creator who lives on the glorious Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.


He helps people of all levels unleash and leverage the power contained within Microsoft Office by delivering training, troubleshooting services and taking on client projects. He loves to simplify tricky concepts and provide helpful, proven, actionable advice that can be implemented for quick results.


Purely for amusement he sometimes talks about himself in the third person.

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JOIN THE DISCUSSION

    • I’ve been on a hunt and I can’t find anything that works. The common suggestions are Alt + 2082 and Alt + 8322, neither of which works in Excel.

      The best suggestion I have is to highlight the ‘2’ then press ALt HFNB Enter. This is the keyboard shortcut to activate the Home ribbon, open the Format Cells dialog and check/tick the Subscript box. Alternatively, press Ctrl 1 then Alt B Enter.

      If anyone has the Alt Code and wants to claim the bragging rights, feel free to share!

    • Hi Fabio

      Approx – ALT 247
      Square Root – ALT 251
      Not equals – is usually ALT 2260 or ALT 8800 but some ALT codes including this one do not work in Excel.

      Other codes that you may find useful are:
      Similar – ALT 126
      Equivalent to – ALT 240
      Greater than or equal to – ALT 242
      Less than or equal to – ALT 243
      Infinity – ALT 236
      Pi – ALT 227

      You can also choose Insert | Symbol then change the subset to Mathematical Operators and insert the symbol manually.

      I hope that helps

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