Typing a caron

[jmt356]

How do I type a caron? It is a symbol that looks like an upside-down carrot ( ˇ ) that is used in transcribing Chinese characters into pinyin. I cannot find the symbol on the international keyboard. I cannot find it in my US or International keyboard.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caron" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), "For legacy reasons, most letters that can carry carons are precomposed characters in Unicode, but a caron can also be added to any letter by using the combining character U+030C ◌̌ combining caron (HTML ̌), for example: b̌ q̌ J̌," but it is not clear to me what that means.

[HansV]

Start the Character Map accessory.
Scroll down until you're past the letters with accents.
You'll find the combining caron there:

S0527.png

Click Select (just once!), then Copy. You can now paste it into any application. After pasting it, type any other character. Here is an example from Notepad:

S0528.png

How well it works, depends on the font and on the application.

In Word, you can type 30c then press Alt+X to insert a caron. Take care that there is no digit or character a...f before (or after) 30c.

[jmt356]

In Word, how would I enter the combining caron above an "a" or an "e" if I am not able to type an "a" or an "e" before the 30c / Alt+X?

[HansV]

Type an a or e.
On the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Symbol > More Symbols...
Make sure that Unicode (Hex) is selected in the 'from:' dropdown.
Type 30c in the 'Character code:' box.
Click Insert.

S087.png

[HansV]

You can also, in the same dialog, assign the combining caron to a custom keyboard shortcut: click the 'Shortcut Key...' button.