Trademark text symbols
I'm sure lots of people know this text symbol. You can even see it on Facebook, Myspace and YouTube. Trademark TM ™ and registered trademark ® are pretty popular computer symbols that people had been texting from the times when ASCII encoding was developed. And did you know you can type Trademark TM ™ and registered trademark ® text symbols right from your keyboard? I'll show you how to do it by using different techniques depending on your Operating System and tastes.
I will also show you how to access a Character map tool on your system. Charmaps are very handy programs for text symbols. They are installed by default on Windows and Mac systems, aswell as some Linux distributions.
Note: if you aren't interested in writing trademark text symbols with the use of keyboard - you can always just copy. To find out how to do that and find lots more symbols to copy - view how to copy-paste symbols.
What trademark means
A trademark symbol or trade mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business
organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which
the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.
A trademark is designated by the following symbols:
- ™ tm for an unregistered trademark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods;
- ℠ sm for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand services;
- ® r for a registered trademark. The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.
How to type it in?
Choose your system and find out.
On Windows
Alt codes
If you're running Windows on your Desktop PC, or Laptop (not Macbook, though) then you can use Alt codes. I'm not sure about Netbooks, but I'd recommend you read and try. Alt codes are keyboard combinations (shortcuts) to type additional symbols not available on standard keyboard layout. You can type practically all frequently used symbols with this shortcut series. Read my reference for more details.
Here are Alt Codes for trademark text symbols. Try them if you know how to enter alt codes. You should remember them if you'll need to type TM, or registered trademark some time later.
| Alt code | Symbol |
|---|---|
| 0153 | ™ |
| 0174 | ® |
Shift states
This is fastest and easiest to use. You can type any possible character, symbol, or sign from Unicode encoding with shift states. Just like you use Shift key to type capital (UPCASE) letters and special sign, you can assign more symbols to Alt and Ctrl keys.
The only problem is that it takes about 5-15 minutes to make and setup a custom layout with your desired symbols. But it's not a big problem, is it?..
You can easily assign trademark symbols and any other text characters to your keyboard with this technique. For example, you could make TM by simultaneously pressing AltGr (right Alt key) and T, and make registered trademark ® by pressing R with AltGr depressed. Just like typing upcase letters with the Shift key.
Character map
There is a standard built-in program on Windows called "Character Map", or simply "CharMap". Using it, you can enter any possible symbol installed on your computer. That's a hell lot larger range than you can get with alt codes. Read the reference below to find out how to use it.
On Mac
Keyboard viewer
To make special characters with your keyboard on Mac computer you'll most likely have to use Keyboard Viewer. The character range (number of different symbols) that it gives to you is pretty wide. You can use it to see the layout of characters on keyboard for any chosen language. For example, if U.S. is selected in the Input menu, you see the characters that appear on a U.S. keyboard in Keyboard Viewer. Also, you can choose to view shortcuts for symbols and signs that are most often used, like "√ ∑ π ∞ ∆ ™ © æ £ ¢", etc.
I'm not quite sure, if you can make trademarks with this. But check it, and you'll find ways to type tens of other great characters.
Character palette
If you want to insert any possible text symbol into your writings, such as trademark TM icon, a flat note sign ♭, or heart ♥ in the middle of a sentence, you can use the Mac OS X Character Palette. This utility that lets you select symbols and special characters visually from all the text symbols installed on your computer. It's a really amazing tool, so don't miss your chance and find out how to use it on Apple Mac OS Character Palette.
This applet can really help you. It has got all the symbols, so it's got all the trademark aswell.
On Linux
Keyboard codes
There actually are 3 different ways to type symbols on Linux with a keyboard. And all, or at least 2 of them can produce trademarks. So, please, read more to choose a method that is best for you.
Following are codes required to write trademark symbols.
| Unicode hex code | Symbol | Compose key sequence | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2122 | ™ | tm | ™ |
| 00ae | ® | or | ® |
Character map
Character map is a program that displays all possible text symbols. You can choose some, and copy them to where you want them to be. It can even help you with the keyboard codes I just wrote about, as you can also look up Unicode symbol codes with it.
Because, Linux has different interfaces, like KDE and GNOME, there are different charmap programs. And you can also download a java CharMap that works everywhere where Java RE is installed. Read about all of them.
In HTML
Following are HTML entity codes of trademark symbols.
| HTML entity | Symbol |
|---|---|
| ™ | ™ |
| ® | ® |
| ℠ | ℠ |


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