Typing an Ellipsis or other Special Characters

Sometimes I have a need to type special characters. Some of them aren't obviously represented on my keyboard. Indeed, no physical keyboard can realistically show all Unicode characters.

One of my often used special characters is the ellipsis (…) which is Unicode character U+2026.

On Windows, you can hold ALT while entering the code on the numpad. That doesn't work on Linux, as I've often found out. Instead of remembering how to, I sometimes cheat and copy that character from somewhere on the net. To jog my memory, this is how to

1. Press and hold Shift+Ctrl
2. Press and release U
3. Enter hexadecimal number, eg 2026
4. Release Shift+Ctrl

Voila! What just happened is Unicode Composition in play.

After #2, an underlined u appears to be followed by your typed characters in #3. When you release Shift+Ctrl in #4, the Unicode character appears there instead.

You could optionally release Shift+Ctrl after #2, but before #3. There is a slight change. After #4, the Unicode character does not get automatically composed till you press another key like Space or Enter.

You can type any other unicode character similarly. Find the corresponding hexadecimal number from any unicode reference^[1].

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[1] Unicode Character Name Index
[2] Unicode composition