Inserting characters in Illustrator 9.0

[Jennifer_McClure@adobeforums.com]

I am trying to insert characters such as the "plus than or equal to" (>_), plus or minus (+-). Is there a character list that lists the Alt shortcuts for these characters? The Alt shortcuts from Word do not always work.

[BobHill@adobeforums.com]

Jennifer,

Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Character Map and you'll get the complete menu of all fonts and extended characters for any selected font. Just click the character (such as degree sign and you'll see ALT 0176 in lower right corner and you'll get °. You MUST use the numeric keyboard with NumLock set to make it work. Your standard keyboard will give you < and >, of course, as well as + and -. No ALTS necessary for those.

Bob

[Jennifer_McClure@adobeforums.com]

I tried to copy and paste the greater than and equal to character from the Character Map and it gave me a question mark in Illustrator. I also tried to drag it into my Illustrator document and I got an equal sign. It will not give me the correct character. By the way, I am working on a PC.

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Jennifer,

Illustrator 9 did not have full support for Open Type fonts (CD does).

For TT and Type 1 fonts Alt+0177 should give ± in many fonts, but you are
unlikely to find less than/equal to or greater than/equal to in anything
other than OpenType fonts or specialised mathematical fonts

[Jennifer_McClure@adobeforums.com]

Does Illustrator 10 support Open Type fonts? Is there an add on to Illustrator 9 that we could purchase?

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Jennifer,

>>Does Illustrator 10 support Open Type fonts? <<

Not fully, no. There are no plugins that I am aware of that would be able to
give you O/T support - the type engine is at the core of the application.