enter special characters on us 65% keyboard without numpad

ashwin iyengar

I am huge fan of notepad++. I have using it for quite some time. My notepad version is v8.8.1. I had encountered a issue. I want to enter Yen symbol. But my keyboard have only $ symbol key. I google searched how to enter yen symbol. I see that 0165 [ alt ] [ x ] works in windows notepad but not in notepad ++. I can copy paste from windows character map. But that is not easy if i have to use the symbol frequently. There are some suggestions to use numlock and key combination. But unfortunately mine is a 65% mechanical keyboard without numpad. I am ready to forgo some key like for example F4 key for yen symbol key. I am looking for easy and quick way to enter yen symbol ¥ . This one i typed from character map. Copying every time from char. map is not convenient. It would be nice to have similar way to enter this as well 円 .

Coises

@ashwin-iyengar There is a way. You can use a macro.

In Notepad++, select Macro | Start Recording.
Type a y. Do not press any other keys, do not click anywhere. Just type that one letter.
Select Macro | Stop Recording.
Select Macro | Save Current Recorded Macro…
Make up a name (e.g., Yen) and type that in the box. Pick a key combination (e.g., check Ctrl and Alt and pick Y from the drop-down) and click OK.
Now close Notepad++.

If you could have typed the character you wanted, you’d be done. Since you can’t type it (pasting won’t work; the macro would paste instead of typing), you have to edit the macro definition.

In Windows Explorer, type %AppData\Notepad++ in the top entry area and press Enter.
Find the file shortcuts.xml and open it in Notepad++.
Find the lines that look like this:

        <Macro name="Yen" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="no" Key="89">
            <Action type="1" message="2170" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="y" />

Edit the second line so that it ends sParam="¥" /> (this time it’s OK to paste from Character Map, or any other convenient source).
Use Save As… to save the file in the same folder but under a different name (e.g., shortcuts1.xml).
Close Notepad++.
In Windows Explorer, rename shortcuts.xml to something else (e.g., shortcuts-old.xml) and rename your file to shortcuts.xml.

Now the key combination you selected will type the Yen sign. You can do the same with other symbols.

ashwin iyengar

That is awesome @Coises . This works awesomely. Just as I wanted. Now I am able to insert yen symbol with a few keystrokes. Thank you very much.

Mark Olson

If you know the hex code for a symbol, I prefer to use the HTMLTag plugin to automatically convert XML character encodings into their corresponding characters (e.g., 
 will automaticaly convert to the LF character after you hit SPACE).