Hi,
I’ve created an icon font and realized that I cannot access the minus and multiply characters on my Mac keyboard in InDesign or Illustrator… I have customers that aren’t using software that has OpenType functionality so they need to use the keystrokes, but I cannot see how to type the minus or multiply. The character that is called minus in GLyphsapp does not appear when I press minus, rather the character that is assigned to a hyphen appears, and i can’t find the multiply at all…
Can you tell me how to get these keystrokes?
Also, is there a guide around on how to key in the arrow symbols??
Thanks
In OS X you can’t type the minus and multiply characters from the keyboard. You can access them through a glyphs panel in InDesign; I didn’t check Illustrator.
Arrow characters will be accessible only if you have a font with arrows in it. They are not part of the basic Mac Latin 1 character set. Most frequently they are found in pi fonts, also known sometimes as dingbats. These will possibly need to be accessed through the glyphs panel depending upon their location in the font.
If your clients are using a software with limited capability you may need to make a special font for their use.
Most keyboard layouts do not give you access to multiply and minus. You can use the Unicode keyboard, or make your own keyboard layout with an app called Ukelele, or educate your customers to use the Edit > Emoji & Symbols command available in most Mac apps, or, as George said, the glyph palettes in Adobe apps.