Introduction
MS Word and Excel are the most commonly used platforms these days. The versatile use and user-friendly interface make them even more preferred by people. Whether you are a student or a working professional, these two applications are widely a part of your day-to-day work. There are numerous features but for today let us see How to Insert the Section Symbol In Word or Excel? We start by looking at the ways of inserting the ‘§’ symbol in MS Word and Excel, respectively.
The ‘§’ is also called a Silcrow, Section-sign, or Double-S. It is generally used in legal documents to refer to a specific legal note or particular sections of the document. The origin of the letter goes back to Latin times in which a double-S depicted ‘signum sectiōnis’, the section symbol, as we call it now. Sometimes, it is used multiple times, such as §§ while referring to different sections of the document.
This article will take you through two ways of this symbol: One, the usual conventional way and, the other shortcut way.
Inserting Special Characters in MS Word
- Open the Word application and select a new, blank document. The screen would appear as shown below.
- From the taskbar at the top, go to ‘Insert’. The following options would appear-
- Locate the ‘Symbol’ option at the rightmost side of the screen and click on it. A small drop-down box would appear. It shows the most frequently used symbols. But we need to find out our one. So, click on the drop-down and find ‘More symbols.’ Here’s how the pop-up should look like-
- You will see two different options at the top of the dialogue box- ‘Symbols’ and ‘Special Characters’. Below which there are two other options- ‘Font’ and ‘Subset’. These drop-down lists can help you filter out the type of characters you want to search for.
For example, you are looking for Greek alphabets Alpha, Beta, etc. You can select the option ‘Greek and Coptic’ from the Subset drop-down and easily find those letters.
- Similarly, you can put other characters also. Focusing specifically on the Section symbol ‘§’, the one which we are talking about today, you need to select the option ‘Latin -1 Supplement’. This makes the task easier as you do not need to go scrolling and keep your eyes staring to spot the icon.
- After you locate it, just double-tap to insert it. Or, click on it and then click Insert on the dialogue box.
- Next time whenever you want to use the same symbol, Word will make it easy for you. As soon as you click ‘Symbols’, a list of 20 items will be displayed- frequently used ones. So now you don’t need to go through all the steps again rather get it with one click. Good to go, yeah?
Inserting Special Characters in Ms. Excel
MS Excel is a widely used application. It allows you to manage data systematically. It helps in methodical data entry, easy analysis with plenty of others making big data manageable. Excel is the easiest tool for data analysis.
So, this is how the screen looks like when we open Excel.load the data, then you use Power Pivot to do you analyze
Inserting the Section symbol in Excel is no different from that in Word. Follow the below-mentioned steps-
- Open the Insert tab in the taskbar.
- At the right-most corner, find Symbols.
- In the drop-down, you will find two options- Equations and Symbols.
- Click Symbols, and a dialogue box similar to that in Word will open (see step 3 for image).
- Again, you can either scroll down to find the ‘§’ symbol or filter it by choosing ‘Latin-1 Supplement’ from the Subset tab.
- Double-tap or press insert to get the symbol in the selected cell.
Other ways/ Shortcuts
Why do I need shortcuts?
As already mentioned, the ‘Symbol’ drop-down automatically stores 20 last-used symbols. But, what if, you need to use the same symbols over and over again. In legal documents, Silcrow needs to be inserted numerous times. Multiple times use calls for a shortcut so that you don’t need to follow the long process as several times. Also, many times, some fonts are not supported leading to the unavailability of certain symbols. In such a case, it’s a good idea to get hold of a few shortcut keys that will help you quickly type the required symbols.
Get me started!
Word and Excel use ASCII code (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), a numeric character code corresponding to alphanumeric and special characters. Let’s get to know how to make use of these.
The combination of the Alt key with the specific numeric code for a certain character has to be pressed simultaneously.
Important tip: Use the numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard. Note that the numbers across the top do not work for this.
Coming to the insertion of the ‘§’ symbol, the shortcut key for this is- Alt+0167. Note that 617 is the decimal code of the symbol. Always use 0 before this (or any) decimal code.
How to find a shortcut code for any symbol?
Look at the dialogue box below. When you click on any symbol, the shortcut key code is displayed at the bottom, just above the Insert option.
One can also refer to the ASCII chart wherein you will find the decimal codes for special characters. Remember to put 0 before the codes.
Conclusion
So, if you are a newbie on platforms like Microsoft Word and Excel then this guide will be good to start with. The article covers two different ways of inserting the section symbol- ‘§’. Hope this is helpful.
