macOS: Typing Circled Numbers

I sometimes receive invoices in PDF format that contain circled numbers. Now I would like to enter them occasionally, but I can't find a way on my Mac. I've already looked in the overviews of some fonts and also in the macOS keyboard layout, but so far unsuccessfully. And I certainly don't find anything in the “Character Viewer.”

Modern operating systems can generate and display far more characters according to the Unicode standard than typical keyboard apps show. The current Unicode version 16.0 from September 2024 includes 154,998 characters from 161 modern and ancient scripts. Therefore, rare characters are entered using their hex code.

All Unicode characters are sorted alphabetically by name in the English-language index along with their respective hex code (see ct.de/y34y). However, to find a specific character, it's better to browse individual categories, even though they are only labeled in English. Circled characters belong to the large category “Symbols and Punctuation.” There, circled characters can be found in the subcategory “Enclosed Alphanumerics,” either simply or doubly circled, or with white characters on a black background and in other variations.

If you now want to enter a Unicode character on a current macOS, first open System Settings/Keyboard/Input Sources and add “Unicode Hex Input” there. The column with the input sources does not list it explicitly, so you will only find it if you enter the first few letters of “Unicode” or “Hex” in the search field.

Then open the text where you want to use the special character and switch to “Unicode Hex Input” via the keyboard menu. Hold down the Option key, read the hex code from the Unicode website, and type it into the text. For example, you can enter a ⑤ by holding down the Option key and typing 2464. For the symbol ☯ (Yin-Yang, found under “Miscellaneous Symbols”), type 262F (without the Shift key).

(dz)