Character entities (symbols) represent characters that are not available on your keyboard. Your document type determines which character entities are available in your document.

The Insert Symbol window lists the available symbols. When you insert a symbol into your document, the character it represents appears if it is available in a screen font. If it is not available, a markup icon displaying the symbol name is inserted.

From the Insert Symbol dialog box, you can select accent marks, diacritics, and other character entities provided in your document type. When you insert a symbol from the Insert Symbol window, it is inserted into the toolbar's Insert symbol pulldown list. This list provides quick access for inserting frequently used character entities. (You can specify which symbols appear on this list by default using the set entitylist command.)