Inserting Special Characters

For purposes of this discussion, special characters are those characters that are not readily insertable from a keyboard using the standard keys provided.  For many users these characters are the Greek characters, math symbols, frame drawing characters and accented characters.  The ANSI Chart and OEM Chart commands can be used to view the characters available in each character set, along with their associated character values.

While special characters cannot be inserted directly from the keyboard using a single key, there is a technique that enables these characters to be inserted.  The technique involves typing the character's value from the Numeric keypad while the Alt key is depressed.  The method is slightly different depending upon whether ANSI or OEM character values are being used:

ANSI Characters

To insert a special character by entering its ANSI character value, do the following:

1. Depress and hold the Alt key

2. Type a zero from the Numeric keypad

3. Type the digits that define the character value from the Numeric keypad

4. Release the Alt key

OEM Characters

To insert a special character by entering its OEM character value, do the following:

1. Depress and hold the Alt key

2. Type the digits that define the character value from the Numeric keypad

3. Release the Alt key

Notice that ANSI character values have the form 0### while OEM character values lack the leading zero: ###

The ANSI Chart and OEM Chart permit characters to be inserted by double-clicking or pressing Enter.

A special character can also be inserted by supplying its value to the Insert Character command.

The Insert Symbols feature permits up to eight special characters to be defined for easier input.  Once defined, these symbols can be entered with a single key sequence.

The standard Windows controls (editbox, combobox, etc) do not normally permit most low ASCII values (below 32) to be entered, even using the special technique described above.  Boxer has taken special care to defeat this default behavior so that the following dialogs can accept low ASCII values for input: Find, Replace, Replace Line Enders, Find and Count, Find Text in Disk Files and Fill with String.

If an OEM character value is typed into the editor while an ANSI font is in use, an automatic conversion takes place.  Example: In the OEM character set, the value of the ¼ character is 172.  In the ANSI character set, this character has the value 188.  But if the value 172 is entered using the technique described above, while an ANSI font is in use, character value 188 is inserted.  The converse will occur if an ANSI character value is inserted while an OEM font is in use.