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In Snow Leopard alt-3 used to print a #, in Lion it doesn't. I'v tried different key combination keyboard viewer but still no luck. Any ideas were the # key went?

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It depends heavily on the localization you set - what layout are you using? (It is selected when you first customize your OS and can be changed in the Language & Text system preference under Input Sources ) – bmike♦ Aug 11 '11 at 14:23
1  
Any chance you're on a UK keyboard? Or UK keyboard setting at least? If so, try Alt+3... – Michal M Aug 11 '11 at 14:40
I have my Input Source configured to U.S. – Samantha Catania Aug 11 '11 at 14:40
It's Shift-3 even tough I have the £ sign on my 3 >.< – Samantha Catania Aug 11 '11 at 14:47

4 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Since it varies by keyboard layout - why not open your keyboard viewer and find out?

In the US keyboard layout on lion, it's still shift + 3

enter image description here

You have to select this from the menu bar after enabling it in the menu bar

enter image description here

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The post author did mention trying keyboard viewer. But perhaps did not hit shift or alt+shift? – Tom Gewecke Aug 11 '11 at 14:34
More likely the input source was changer on her. – bmike♦ Aug 11 '11 at 14:47
up vote 2 down vote

It's still Alt-3 on my UK keyboard -- ###.

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apparently uk keyboard has alt-3 as # & shift 3 as £; the U.S. keyboard is vice versa – Samantha Catania Aug 11 '11 at 14:43
this is correct, alt-3 for # on UK keyboard – Graeme Hutchison Dec 19 '11 at 16:44
up vote 1 down vote

I like to use the widget:

CharacterPal

Searching and copying a needed character is faster than with the keyboard viewer:

  • You do can look through all characers at once. With the keyboard viewer you need to hold ⌥ and ⇧ to see more characters.
  • Characters are sorteded by type: greek, keyboard, math...
  • TOP: You can find special (keyboard) symbols like ⌦, ⌘, ⎋, ⏏, ⌤ ...

enter image description here enter image description here

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up vote -1 down vote

You're talking about the hash key? Doesn't it print when you press Shift+3 ? Or maybe your keyboard layout is different but on every keyboard I've seen in the United States that's where the hash key lives.

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Perhaps the questioner isn't in the United States? Apple keyboards in the UK have no hash symbol marked on them at all, but you can get hash with Alt-3 (in Lion as well as Snow Leopard). Similarly, the Euro symbol € is Alt-2, which is marked on the keyboard, and Alt-1 and Alt-4 through Alt-0 also produce different unmarked characters. – Mike Scott Aug 11 '11 at 14:25
¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–≠ alt is fun ⁄€‹›fifl‡°·‚—± how much comes out when non-Macs view this web page? – GEdgar Aug 11 '11 at 15:33
I can see all of that from the windows computer I use for work. Why? – shadesandcolour Aug 11 '11 at 17:52

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