Entering Unicode characters by name

Sometimes I want to type Unicode characters (em-dash, quotes, Greek letters sometimes, superscripts etc). It can be done using character codes, but then one needs to look up / memorize them, which is… tiresome.

Is there a way to enter characters by names in Windows?

Japanese IME has something like this ― e.g. hoshi (Japanese for «star») converts to «☆» ― but for a very limited subset of Unicode.

Unicode Input by Name more or less solves the problem.

You can try uniqoda. It has a search box where you can type the character you are looking for by name. Last updated in January 2022.

Or try All the Unicode can be installed from Microsoft Store. Last updated in 2017

Overview of all available Unicode characters, including Emojis. Convert selected characters to a required format (for developers) or copy characters to the clipboard. Navigate from the overview of all Unicode ranges to the characters. In more than 54,000 characters, find the desired one by entering a search word.

Try BabelMap (Unicode Character Map for Windows). Seems more current and updated with the lastest emojis. Last updated September 2021 (at the time of writing this answer).

BabelMap is a free character map application for Windows that allows you to browse through the entire Unicode character repertoire of nearly 144,000 characters, or search for a particular character by name or by code point. Characters can then be copied to the clipboard for use in any Unicode-aware application.