How to create shortcut to insert specific special character

Question

I'm using some special characters like mathematical symbols in different programs like Mail or Adobe Illustrator. Of course I can open the Symbols Table, search for the needed symbol and copy&paste it. Is there a way to define a shortcut to insert a specific special character?

Answer 1

Two possibilities are through creating a modified keyboard layout (which can be done manually, but is made much simpler using a program like Ukulele) or through a shortcut program like TextExpander

I use TextExpander, myself, so that c== is a shortcut on my system for ⌘, o== for ⌥, and several others, in part because I do not want to lose the symbols already mapped to the option (⌥) key combinations on my keyboard.

On the other hand, remapping the ⌥ keys to symbols different than the ones they are original configured for can be helpful and convenient for some people also, which is where Ukulele shines.

Answer 2

You can get very fast access to the symbols via the widget CharacterPal.

Click on the needed icon in order to paste to the clipboard.

Answer 3

You can use built-in Automator and Services. Look at my answer to the similar question.

Answer 4

Another option would be to create ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and save a property list like this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "\UF704" = { // F1
        "a" = (insertText:, "∀");
        "2" = (insertText:, "²");
    };
    "~a" = (insertText:, "∀");
}

After restarting applications, pressing F1+A or ⌥+A should insert "∀".