How to type Degree Temperature Symbol in Mac OS X
You can insert the degree temperature symbol into any Mac OS X app by hitting the following key command:
Option+Shift+8 produced one like this: Temperature Symbol: 85°
Option+K types a symbol like this: Degree Symbol: 24˚
As you can see the symbols are slightly different but I couldn’t tell you why or what for, so just use which ever one you want. If it’s 35˚ outside, now you can tell someone!
This is simple stuff though right? Well, I just got an email from a relative who was clearly very frustrated that they couldn’t figure out how to type the degree temperature symbol in Mac OS X. I laughed about it for a second but then realized I’ve been asked this question a few times before especially from recent switchers, so clearly some of the simple things just need a simple explanation. Happy temperature telling!
You can use Option + 0 too.
option + 0 is the EASIEST. please update.
The correct degree sign is Option+Shift+8.
Option+K makes a diacritic “ring above” character, and Option-0 makes a “masculine ordinal indicator”.
Although there are similarities between these symbols, there are differences as well. And of course they all have different meanings
These are really not the same.
Option + Shift + 8 is Degree
Option + k is (spacing) Ring Above diacritic
Option + 0 is the the Masculine Ordinal Indicator (has a line under it in some fonts)
Isn’t there a list of most special characters for each keyboard layout somewhere at apple.com?
YEAH, good point, I want a list as well…
but as no-one posted it after 18 months there probably is no list like that… 8(
On a Norwegian keyboard the following apply:
2° = option shift q
5˚ = option shift å
0º = option shift k
mvh
I prefer option+0 (zero) = º like in 5ºC
º˚øØ°• lots of weird symbols, lol, i dont know what any of these are! temperatures? are they farhenheit vs celcius vs kelvin temperature? why so many symbols?
the funny thing is on a PC in windows i dont have ANY idea how to make ANY symbols! so much easier on a mac, everything is.
On a PC, ‘charmap’ is a utility that shows the mappings for an given font, the reference being arial for double-byte fonts.
hold alt + 0176 on the keypad and you get character 176, which is a degree symbol.
Mac OSX has a character pallette – cmd+opt+T, but it’s light on the keystroke details you need for a given character. You can copy characters, though.
Title’s wrong again. Should be: “How to type Degree Temperature Symbol on a US qwerty keyboard”
And there’s always Edit->Special Characters (⌥⌘T) and Search for degree:
°
℃
℉
One could also use system preferences/international/input menu/”show input menu” checked.
after that, you will see a new icon on the menu bar (top right side of the screen), which allows you to type many special characters depending on your country, keyboard etc
regards
Pascal
it might be slightly off-topic, but is there a shortcut for the “square” symbol too? til now I had a workaround to the job for me (quicksilver, copy-paste the character).. if you need m², cm², x² … a lot a “native” osx key-combo would be fine (for 3 as well?).
thanks in advance.
michael
[...] looking for solutions on how to type the degree symbol (like in 0°) on OSX, but could only find solutions for English keyboard layout (or solutions suggesting copying an image…). After some trial and [...]
Very helpful. Not all sites that try to solve this problem actually provide the correct solution for Mac OS X. Thanks!
Characters in Unicode do have a meaning and whilst they may render similarly on your screen another person may perceive them differently.
Look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Special-Characters-Mac.png
which makes it clear that °ª are made to be seen as a pair. They are used in Spanish where instead of 3rd (“third”) one says 3ª (“tercera”) and instead of 1st one says 1° (“primero”).
You can also tell if you’ve used the correct degree symbol because HTML will render it as °.
oops. It will render as & deg ; = °.