How to use Character Viewer with only keyboard and no mouse?

I'm looking for a mouseless/mouse-free solution. And I want to use the whole Character Viewer-- not just certain characters.

I can open the Character Viewer with CTRL+CMD+SPACE, but it doesn't have focus, so it seems I have to use my mouse to select anything inside it.

How can I give that window keyboard focus without using my mouse?

And then how can I copy characters from that window without using my mouse?

Solution 1:

The Character Viewer has two states, as seen below.

1. The complex state, that needs to be clicked first and doesn't seem to allow keyboard-only activation:

2. The simple state, that gets automatically activated when invoked and is a joy to work with using only the keyboard. Tab key is used to switch between emoji categories:

You can switch between the states by clicking the friendly but almost invisible icon in the top-right corner (don't know what it's called, doesn't have any tooltip).

To summarize, click the friendly icon, activate the Character Viewer, stay with the keyboard.

Solution 2:

You should be able to use the search field in the small version of Character Viewer. See one of the answers to this earlier question.