Make Your Own Characters in Windows

For all those Wall·E lovers, who wonder as to how to get the ‘center dot’ · and many other special characters like Copyright © or Registered ® or ™ Trademark, Windows has had this little application tucked away in it’s folder hierarchy that allows you do so, pretty neatly and efficiently. In Windows 7 it has been brought out from the closet. Screen-shot:

*img255.imageshack.us/img255/8776/captureem6.png

To use this nifty application all you have to do is navigate to:

All Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Character Map

That’s not all. Let’s say you’re making a document and want to insert your own character? Windows has had this facility too, but it has not been used and talked about a lot simply because of it’s lack of use.

Presenting Private Character Editor:

*img253.imageshack.us/img253/5310/privatecharacteryv2.png

Buried in the System32 folder this little application allows you to make your own ‘characters’ that you can access from the Character Map and insert into documents. Creating a character is pretty simple, you can import an image directly into the editor by using a copy-paste trick. To create your own character:

1. Start –> Run –> C:\WINDOWS\system32\eudcedit.exe
2. Choose any box
3. Draw or paste your own character
4. Edit –> Save Character
5. File –> Font Links –> Link With All Fonts

Now, to access your character:

1. Start Character Map
2. From the fonts drop-down, choose All Fonts (Private Characters)

NOTE: Here is the drawback however, the character will only be visible on your machine and will only be rendered by Internet Explorer. The best way to use this would be to copy it in your Word/PPT document and then save that document as XPS or PDF.

~Enjoy