How to type special characters in this forum?

Question

The general rule used in LaTeX doesn't work: for example, typing M\"{o}bius and Cram\'{e}r doesn't give the desired outputs.

Answer 1

I also wanted to type Möbius, etc, just as in LaTeX, by typing M\"o... so I've made a userscript for that. To use it,

1. Install a userscript manager (e.g., Tampermonkey extension for Chrome or Greasemonkey extension for Firefox)
2. Click here to add the userscript.

Besides the common diacritics, the script enables shortcuts for "blackboard bold" letters and math operator names: see the readme file.

Answer 2

It would be a misconception to consider the source of a post as somehow analogous to the source of a LaTeX document (not only diacritics but quite literally nothing works except of course the math-environment). Instead it is better to think of the source of a HTML page. The basic formatting is done via Markdown and HTML.

Only there is extra support for typesetting mathematics via MathJax, whose syntax happens to be similar to the one of LaTeX.

As a consequence special characters can be inserted for example

1. by some direct method, for instance for many a user "é" or "ö" are just as easy to type as "n" (it is just some button on their keyboard), some combination of keystrokes (which one depends on the set-up), copy-paste.

2. using the methods provided by HTML such as using the name of HTML entities with the systax &name; where "name" is the name of the character, which is at least sometimes is not that hard to remember. For a list see for example the relevant Wikipedia page.

I mention 1. as in LaTeX by default this is in fact not possible. For 2. it should be noted that this does not work in titles and comments, but creating the character in (the preview of) the body and copy-pasting is an option.

Answer 3

There are certain system-dependent ways to enter diacriticals and other special characters. For example, on a Macintosh computer running any operating system prior to 10.10 (Yosemite):

• The keystroke combination option-U + vowel produces the vowel with an umlaut over it.
• The keystroke combination option-E + vowel produces the vowel with an accent over it.

Further keystroke combinations for the Mac are listed here.

Beginning with Macintosh OS 10.10 (Yosemite) there is an even simpler way to produce such characters: simply press and hold the desired vowel key on the keyboard, and a palette of accented versions of that vowel will appear on screen.

Slightly more elaborate methods exist in Windows; see here and here.

Answer 4

If you use the standard implementation of Mathjax, the M\"{o}bius will not render.

Workaround:

\ddot{o}

will give:

$$ \ddot{o} $$

Probably this is helpful for some.

Another workaround is to specify another font for the text in Mathjax:

"HTML-CSS": {
    styles: {
        ".MathJax .mtext": {
            "font-family": "sans-serif !important"
        }
    }
}

Or if you have access to the local HTML/CSS files:

.MathJax .mtext {
    font-family: sans-serif !important;
}

Answer 5

Slightly less ugly than one answer offered is: \ddot{\mathsf a} $\ddot{\mathsf a}$ - but it's slightly bold and for all the extra typing it's better to find a webpage with the characters and copy/paste them (assuming you're using a cellphone or a keyboard without the characters).

Sources from webpages are:

• language specific ones such as: open central unrounded vowel, Germanic umlaut - those offer explanations of history and usage, along with a litany of links.

• Big list of Diaeresis (single, double, above, below, offset: dots and lines) at Wikipedia, and ones linked to various diacritics.

• Search websites such as &what; allow searches for all the Unicode characters.

You can copy them from here also: ä ö ü

Latin Ä ä Ǟ ǟ Ą̈ ą̈ B̈ b̈ C̈ c̈ Ë ë Ḧ ḧ Ï ï Ḯ ḯ K̈ k̈ M̈ m̈ N̈ n̈ Ö ö Ȫ ȫ Ǫ̈ ǫ̈ Ṏ ṏ P̈ p̈ Q̈ q̈ Q̣̈ q̣̈ S̈ s̈ T̈ ẗ Ü ü Ǖ ǖ Ǘ ǘ Ǚ ǚ Ǜ ǜ Ṳ ṳ Ṻ ṻ Ṳ̄ ṳ̄ ᴞ V̈ v̈ Ẅ ẅ Ẍ ẍ Ÿ ÿ Z̈ z̈

Greek Ϊ ϊ ῒ ΐ ῗ Ϋ ϋ ῢ ΰ ῧ ϔ

Cyrillic Ӓ ӓ Ё ё Ӛ ӛ Ӝ ӝ Ӟ ӟ Ӥ ӥ Ї ї Ӧ ӧ Ӫ ӫ Ӱ ӱ Ӵ ӵ Ӹ ӹ Ӭ ӭ

The only MathJax used in this answer is in the first sentence, the remaining characters can all be copy/pasted off of this webpage and onto another Stack Exchange edit or comment box, as-is.