Upside down question and exclamation

Upside down question and exclamation marks
keyboard buttons with symbols
Upside down question ¿ and upside exclamation ¡ marks are native to Spanish language. That's why operating system developers of Windows, Mac and Linux made it possible to type upside down characters ¿¡ straight from keyboard. I'll show you how to do it with 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 upside-down text symbols with the use of keyboard - you can always just copy them. To find out how to do that and find lots more symbols to copy - view how to copy-paste symbols.

Upside down text

Couldn't wait for the right moment to say that you can use an interesting generator called aboqe to flip whole texts uʍop ǝpısdn by using symbols.

aboqe - Flip/Turn message letters and text characters Upside Downaboqe - Flip/Turn message letters and text characters Upside DownAboqe generator is a tool that can flip your text upside down by utilising special letters, symbols and characters. Turn messages 180° with ǝboqɐ. For Facebook, MySpace, Google+, etc.

What upside down marks means

Spanish Upside down question mark Upside down question and exclamation marks are punctuation marks of Spanish language used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences. They can also be combined in several ways to express the combination of a question and surprise or disbelief. The initial marks are normally mirrored at the end of the sentence or clause by the common ? and ! marks used in most other languages.

I'll give you several examples of use for clearence.

¡Y tú quién te crees que eres? ("Who do you think you are?!")
¿¡Y tú quién te crees que eres!?, ¡¿Y tú quién te crees que eres?!
¿Por qué dices eso? ("Why do you say that?")

More information on usage and stuff can be found on Inverted question mark and exclamation point article on Wikipedia. I'll proceed with the ways you can type upside down characters from keyboard.

How to type?

On Windows

Main article
Keyboard symbols on Windows (alt codes)Keyboard symbols on Windows Wonder how to type text symbols with your keyboard? References on Alt-key codes - keyboard shortcuts for special characters on Windows and Shift states.
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.

Alt Codes (symbols and character computer keyboard codes)Alt Codes Use Alt codes to make text symbols and special characters from your keyboard, or laptop. Guide for PC and laptop + full list of Alt codes. Windows alt codes and keyboard symbols on Mac and Linux. Pimp your MySpace and Facebook profiles, or create some useful text symbols like umlauts, copyright, trademark, registered sign, euro, pound, etc. right from your keyboard.

Here are Alt Codes of upside down question and exclamation text marks. Try them if you know how to enter alt codes. You should remember them if you'll need ¡ and ¿ symbols some time later.

Alt code Symbol
0191 ¿
0161 ¡
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 inverted question and exclamation symbols and any other text characters to your keyboard with this technique. For example, you can assign ¡ to by made by simultaneously pressing AltGr (right Alt key) and 1 keys. Just like you can make ! by pressing Shift key instead of AltGr.

Shift states for Windows symbols (Custom keyboard layouts)Shift states for Windows symbols Just like with Shift key, on Windows your computer can type any wanted text symbol when you hold Ctrl, or Alt key and press some other key. Find out how to make and setup custom keyboard layouts. It's the easiest and fastest way of typing symbols.
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.

MS Windows Character mapMS Windows Character mapType special characters and text symbols with the use of built-in CharMap program on MS Windows. ☯ 웃 ♥ 유 ♫ ♬ ✄ ✂ ✆ ✉

On Mac

Keyboard viewer
Mac keyboard viewer window

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.

It seems, like Option+Shift+/ may produce the upside-down question mark ¿. And Option+1 (number 1, that makes ! if you press Shift+1) may produce upside-down exclamation ¡.

Mac keyboard symbol shortcuts (+ Keyboard Viewer)Mac keyboard symbol shortcuts Read what shortcuts you can use to type symbols and special characters from your keyboard on Apple Mac computers.
Character palette

If you want to insert any possible text symbol into your writings, such as upside down characters, 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.

Apple Mac OS Character Palette (map of text symbols)Apple Mac OS Character Palette Find out how you can use Mac's built-in Character Palette to insert special text symbols, characters from other languages, etc. ☀ ☃ ♡ ℃ ℬℯ ℋℰℛℰ

On Linux

Keyboard codes

There actually are 3 different ways to type symbols on Linux with a keyboard. And, I trust, all of them can produce upside down question mark and inverted exclamation. So, please, read more to choose a method that is best for you.

Linux keyboard shortcuts for text symbols (and characters)Linux keyboard shortcuts for text symbols Find out about keyboard shortcuts that you can use on Linux OS to type text symbols and Unicode special characters. Somewhat like Alt codes. ♪ ✌ ☠ 웃 ♋

Following are codes required to write upside down punctuation marks.

Unicode hex code Symbol Compose key sequence Symbol
00a1 ¡ !! ¡
00bf ¿ ?? ¿
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.

Linux OS Character mapsLinux OS Character mapsType special symbols and text characters with the use of character map for Linux and Unix OS. ❡✽ ➦ ❥ ✪ GNOME's Gucharmap, KDE's KCharSelect Character Selector and Java character map.

In HTML

Following are HTML entity codes of upside down question and exclamation marks.

HTML entity Symbol
¡ ¡
¿ ¿
Article updated on 2010-12-13 20:36:25

Comments

Be the first!

Ask me

Message (use English language)

Email

Type "43" (against spam)