Hidden Type Gem of Adobe Illustrator - The Glyphs Panel

The Glyphs panel in Adobe Illustrator is a bit of a gem when it comes to typing special characters. The Glyphs panel will give you all of those special characters that we all have to type from time-to-time. But we don't always remember the key commands to get those characters. It's handy to know those key commands, because it makes the copy input go a bit faster. That's why I've included links below to download key command charts for Mac and Windows keyboards.

But with the Glyphs panel you don't need to read charts or memorizing key commands. If you keep the Glyphs panel open while you're typing you can simply double-click on a character while your typing cursor is active and the character will be magically inserted for you.

You access the Glyphs panel by going to the Type menu and selecting Glyphs. Also under Window > Type > Glyphs. Or keep the panel handy in the panel bar.

The Glyphs panel is also a great quick reference to see exactly what characters are available in any selected font. For example, the first illustration below shows all of the characters available in Helvetica. A monster selection! The second illustration shows the much smaller characters set available in Papyrus.

Another handy feature of the Glyph panel, when using an OpenType font, is the addition of sub-menus which categorize the character sets. See the third illustration below. In addition, when selecting a character in an OpenType font, you can select Alternates for Current Selection to see the alternates for that particular character. See the fourth illustration below.

Charts for Typing Special Characters

All of these charts are courtesy of Washington State University

Typing Special Characters on a Macintosh:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7aNwhAU1TXaREJpZlNYTVJ3WE0

Typing Special Characters on a Windows English US International Keyboard:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7aNwhAU1TXac014NGw1SUpaMlk

Typing Special Characters on a Windows Standard English Keyboard:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7aNwhAU1TXaQkdpa3hvYnlTSjA

Illustration One: Helvetica - Entire available character set displayed in Glyphs panel.

Illustration Two: Papyrus - Entire characters set displayed in Glyphs panel.

Illustration Three: OpenType font category sub-menu available in Glyphs panel.

Illustration Four: 'Alternates for Current Selection' feature for OpenType fonts in Glyphs panel.