How do I get a 'tick'?

[G-CPTN]

I use Notepad for 'making notes' - such as shopping lists.
I've started one for food items to be bought for Christmas.
Some items are relatively non-perishable whilst others will need to be bought 'fresh' a couple of days beforehand.

I want to 'tick off' those items that I have bought, yet leave them in the list to show that I've considered them.

I realise that Wingdings has a tick character, but it doesn't show as such in Notepad - even though I copy and paste the character from Character Map - unless I convert the whole text into Wingdings (and that leaves the rest unintelligible). I use Arial as my regular font.

Is there any character sequence that I can use that will produce the effect that I want?

I could use √ - which is described as U+221A - can I key this in instead of using copy-and-paste from CharacterMap?

I'm using Vista if that's relevant.

[x213a]

Copy and paste this into it!

✓


Heres another one for you ✓


:ok:

[bnt]

That's great, but if you paste ✓ in to Notepad, you get nothing, because the default Notepad font doesn't support that character as-is. It only looks like that if you select Wingdings, as already pointed out. √ has much more support, even though it's a square root sign, not a check mark.

Copy-and-paste from Charmap does the job for me in general.You can enter some extended characters from the numeric keypad (not the top number row) if you know the code, by holding down Alt and typing the code - there's a list here (http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm). You can enter any hex code, but you first have to modify the Registry as described here (http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/specchar.htm). I haven't tried this myself.

Both √ and ✓ are outside the normal ASCII range, so be sure to save the file as UTF-8, if you still want them to be there next time you open the file. (I think it warns you about this, usually.)

[Two_dogs]

Why not just edit your notepad file with plain English? Works for me.
Ticks etc. not required.

Turkey Done
Ham Done
Mince Pies
Champagne
Bourbon (MOST IMPORTANT) :ok:

[jimtherev]

All of the above - but <ALT> 0134 † and <ALT> 0135 ‡ both work. They're sufficiently distinctive & otherwise unused. Any good?

[green granite]

Or just use / it's almost a tick.

[frostbite]

Or even * ?

[Bo Nalls]

Selecet FORMAT, FONT, change the font to wingdings and select OK, Now, select & hold the left-hand ALT key and at the same time type 0252 to generate the tickmark. Remember to change the font back something sensible before typing more text or you'll end up with gobbledygook. Once you have a tick mark you can cut & paste it anywhere in the document without having to change the font again.

[rgbrock1]

Or, instead of using Notepad you could use Wordpad which, I believe, will show your tick mark.

[bnt]

Once you have a tick mark you can cut & paste it anywhere in the document without having to change the font again.
No, G-CPTN is not using Word, he's using Notepad! Pure text, font selection only affects how the document is displayed, not the characters in the text file. If he selects Wingdings, he gets ALL Wingdings, and now his list is unreadable.

He could use WordPad, then he'd need to save the document in a different format, like RTF or DOC. A text file is only text, no font information at all, no setting one character to Wingdings. That "square root" sign should work, though - or something more "normal", as noted.

[Bo Nalls]

Well presented BNT. Forgot that the whole document picks up the selected font. Long time since I used notepad. Windows wordpad is probably the way ahead for a free & simple text editor, as suggested.

[bnt]

This may be flogging a dead horse, slightly, but something interesting has come up. I was on my old Windows box earlier, and it looked as though you have to use Wingdings to get that checkmark. I looked for it in the Charmap program, and could not find it.

However, now I'm on my Linux netbook, and I can see that the checkmark is actually a Unicode character, so you don't need to use Wingdings. That explains why we can see it in this thread, without setting the font to Wingdings. According to the Linux Charmap program, it's Unicode character U+2713 - maybe you can use Alt+2713 to get it.

[green granite]

Once you have it in the document you can copy it from there, to save opening the charmap each time.

[reynoldsno1]

I use a notepad & a pencil - no problems with getting a tick there...:ok:

[G-CPTN]

Thanks for the replies.
I use Notepad - because I have always used Notepad (and I'm set in my ways).

I tried using the Wingdings tick but it would only display as such when all text was converted to Wingdings (with resultant confusion). Of course it does provide a means of disguising any message from casual viewers that might choose to read them - sort of like writing in code.
Anyway, I copied and pasted the square root from Arial - which did display correctly - until I saved in text (.txt) format - since when it displays as lover case v (though not italic) as it is Unicode. I don't want to save in any other file format other than .txt - but that's my decision.

I guess I'll have to adopt some of the other (worthwhile) suggestions (for which many thanks). I asked the question in case there was a simple solution.

I still miss my Amstrad PCW for 'word processing'. You could allocate phrases to every key and paste phrases that were regularly used by pressing the appropriate letter or number together with the Paste key IIRC. PCs are so restricted in comparison!