Windows – How to type U+200B character

charactersunicodewindows

How can I type the unicode character U+200B (zero-width space character) with my keyboard?

Best Answer

When using recent versions of Chrome/Chromium, you can use its console to copy the character to clipboard:

copy("\u200B")         // works for BMP characters only (U+0000 to U+FFFF)
copy("\u{200B}")       // works for all characters (U+0000 to U+10FFFF)

copy(String.fromCodePoint(0x200B))

Related Solutions

How to delete U+200B (Zero-width space) using sed

This seems to work for me:

sed 's/\xe2\x80\x8b//g' inputfile

Demonstration:

$ /usr/bin/printf 'X\u200bY\u200bZ' | hexdump -C
00000000  58 e2 80 8b 59 e2 80 8b  5a                       |X...Y...Z|
$ /usr/bin/printf 'X\u200bY\u200bZ' | sed 's/\xe2\x80\x8b//g' | hexdump -C
00000000  58 59 5a                                          |XYZ|

Edit:

Based partially on Gilles' answer:

tr -d $(/usr/bin/printf "\u200b") < inputfile

Windows – How to Type Zero-Width Space Character (U+200B) on a Laptop Keyboard

You could just use the Character Map program, built into Windows. It lists all characters for each font installed on the system, and lets you select one and copy it to the clipboard. In fact, I use it to reference all the keycodes to type them, otherwise, but when I'm on my laptop, it's handy just to be able to copy the characters from that program.

It's available in the Accessories start group, or by running charmap.exe.

You can copy U+200B like so:

charmap

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to delete U+200B (Zero-width space) using sed

Windows – How to Type Zero-Width Space Character (U+200B) on a Laptop Keyboard

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