Degree Symbol - Keyboard Entry

Keyboard Entry

Some computer keyboard layouts, such as the QWERTZ layout as used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the AZERTY layout as used in France and Belgium, have the degree symbol available directly on a key. But the common keyboard layouts in English-speaking countries do not include the degree sign, which then has to be input some other way. The method of inputting depends on the operating system being used.

On the Colemak keyboard layout, one can press AltGr+\ followed by D to insert a degree sign.

In the Mac OS operating system, the degree symbol can be entered by typing ⌥ Opt+⇧ Shift+8. One can also use the Mac OS character palette, which is available in many programs by selecting Special Characters from the Edit Menu, or from the Input Menu (flag) icon on the menu bar (enabled in the International section of the System Preferences).

In Microsoft Windows, one can type Alt+248 or Alt+0176 Note: on full size keyboards, the numeric keypad must be used; on laptops the virtual numeric keypad must be used. Character Map tool to obtain a graphical menu of symbols. In Microsoft Office and similar programs, there is often also an Insert menu with an Insert Symbol or Symbol command that brings up a graphical palette of symbols to insert, including the degree symbol.

In LaTeX, the packages gensymb or textcomp that provides the commands \degree or \textdegree, respectively. In the absence of these packages one can write the degree symbol as ^{\circ} in math mode. In other words, it is written as the empty circle glyph \circ as a superscript.

In Linux operating systems, such as Ubuntu, one can enter Unicode characters in any text entry field by first pressing Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U+Unicode. For the degree symbol, this is done by entering Ctrl+⇧ Shift+UB0. Alternatively, the Compose key followed by o, o will write the degree symbol.