Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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This is what happens when one confuses "random" with "profound."

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KeyID

 Find out what character something is, and what they typed to get it.
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(+1) 		  [vote for,
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Is that a lowercase l, an uppercase I, or a Pipe sign? Is that an asterisk, or just a bullet that looks like an asterisk? Is that an en-dash or a bold hyphen? What font is that? I see that you've typed ¢. What keys did you press to do that?

Answer all these questions and more with KeyID, the desktop accessory that makes computing a breeze.

KeyID runs in the task bar. Simply highlight any character you see on the screen and drag it onto the KeyID icon. A window opens giving you all the information you need:

¢
Font: Monotype Corsiva 12-pt
Bold
ALT-0-1-6-2

(Of course, this message comes out in a readable font where all the characters look different! So you can tell what it really is)

Then, instead of having to copy and paste that cents sign whenever you want one yourself, or search the Internet to find the list of codes, or use Word's stupid "Insert Symbol" interface, you now know the information for yourself.

In the Professional version, not only do you get the above data, but the computer also tells you which other fonts contain similar-looking characters.

—phundug, Jul 23 2003

[link]






       I|l - what's the problem again?
—DrCurry, Jul 23 2003
   

       | <-pipe or redirector
Usually on the same key as the \ (backslash)
—phoenix, Jul 23 2003
   

       [DrCurry], do you have a script that changes your anno every 5 minutes, or are you doing it by hand?
—phundug, Jul 23 2003
   

       Emacs does allow this type of things with C-x = command
—artist, Jul 23 2003
   

       I'm confused why you wouldn't be able to identify the font. You don't state what you're looking at, but I presume it must be a web site, since you're looking at highlight-able text which seems not to have originated on your machine. If you can highlight it, then you have the font already installed on your system. (There are rare exceptions to this.)
—waugsqueke, Jul 23 2003
   

       I like the idea, but I think it should be called "Char id". Why key?
—tharsaile, Jul 23 2003
   

       I think it would be useful for all those peopple who will be changing editors in the next few years. Sometimes you are editing something from three people and get something you might not want to change. If you knew what it was. . . . All those old MS Word docs or whatever with weird formatting. My vote is, it's cute. I don't keep a shell open all the time, nor do I wish to. You might have 500 fonts installed like me.
—bob_c, Jul 23 2003
   

       Ah yes, the | symbol. One of those keys that went out of fashion with MS-DOS
—FloridaManatee, Jul 24 2003
   

       I use it every (work) day. It's useful as a delimiter in files submitted to database upload scripts because it's unlikely to appear in the original data, unlike tab, comma, etc.
—angel, Jul 24 2003
   

       Let's not forget Unix.
—RoboBust, Jul 24 2003
   
      
[annotate]
   


 

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