Alt code

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In PCs running the Microsoft Windows or DOS operating systems, additional characters to those available by the current keyboard layout may be typed using the Alt key in conjunction with the keyboard's numeric pad. This technique is generally called an Alt code.

The mapping between numbers and characters are based on the selected code page. On Microsoft Windows, adding a leading zero to the number uses the ANSI code page rather than the OEM code page. On systems in the United States, the ANSI code page is windows-1252 and the OEM code page is code page 437. On most systems in Western Europe, the OEM code page is code page 850. For a complete list, see Code page.

If num lock is disabled, attempting an alt code may cause unexpected results in some applications (for example, as alt+4 is taken as alt-(left arrow) causing a web browser to go back one page). Also, num lock may be required for an alt code to work at all on some systems.

1 Unicode usage
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Unicode usage

Some applications (for example WordPad) extend this method to allow any Unicode character, for example ALT+0256 for Ā. Also, on Windows 2000 or later, the registry key HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method\EnableHexNumpad can be enabled to allow Alt-+-(HEX) for unicode entry.