Question

I am having troble entering the symbol for degree celsuis in a java label box.

I referred to a book and got the following instructions for entering the degree symbol:

1. Make sure that numlock is ON

2. Then Pressing Alt type 0186

But the Problem is that when I press numlock on my laptop (it is also my F11 key) it opens the window for Building main project.

Secondly when I press Alt and type 0186 appears in the label.

Can you describe what this number (0186) is and also why we can’t simply use 186 instead of 0186.

Answer 1

First of all, some background: Each font has between about 26 to 20’000 different “glyphs” (“a” is the glyph for “lower case A”, i.e. a shape which you think means something). The Unicode standard lists all of them.

Since there are many more glyphs than keys on your keyboard, a solution had to be found. That solution was Alt + character code. See here for a list: Windows Alt Key Codes. It also contains detailed instructions how to enter the codes.

The code for ° is 0176, by the way, not 0186.

To enable num lock on your laptop (which has even less keys than the standard 105 keys keyboard), you need to press the “Function” key (usually a blue F somewhere in the lower left corner) plus F11

Lastly, why 0176 rather than 176. The 0 actually tells Windows that you’re about to enter an Alt code. This is necessary since Alt usually controls the UI (activate controls and menus via their shortcut).