BooBoo asked the Answer Line forum how to enter the copyright symbol (©) without going through menus and the character map.

I know two ways to do this. One is easier, but the other will work in just about any Windows program.

The easiest way is to simply type (c). If you're using Microsoft Word or another Office program, or OpenOffice, the program will convert it to © as soon as you type the second parentheses. There may be other programs that do this, but those are the ones I know.

If you're typing in a program that displays (c) as (c), hold down the ALT key while you type 0169 on your keyboard's number pad. As soon as you let go of ALT, © will appear.

This won't work with the typewriter number keys--the ones above the QWERTY letter keys. You have to use the numpad--the number keys at the far right end of the keyboard. Depending on what program you're using, NumLock may have to be on. If you're using a laptop's built-in keyboard, check the documentation to find out how to simulate the numpad.

I'd like to thank smax013 and RonSWinTeam for their answers, which helped me tremendously in preparing the tip. You'll find on the original thread at http://forums.pcworld.com/message/226791.

Add your comments to this article below. If you have other tech questions, email them to me at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum.

7/7/09: This post was altered this morning to correct a typo.