Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that focuses on standardizing the language inputs. There are many Unicode blocks for special symbols and characters that you can’t type using standard English keyboard layout. In this article, let us explain how to change the input method in Mac to Unicode Hex Input and insert the Unicode characters.

Windows Alt Code Vs Mac Option Code

Each hex digit represents four binary digits; therefore, hex is a language to write binary in an abbreviated form. Four binary digits (also called nibbles) make up half a byte. This means one byte can carry binary values from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111.

  1. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator. MAC addresses are primarily assigned by device manufacturers, and are therefore often referred to as the burned-in address, or as an Ethernet hardware address, hardware address, or physical.
  2. In hex, these can be represented in a friendlier fashion, ranging from 00 to FF. In html programming, colors can be represented by a 6-digit hexadecimal number: FFFFFF represents white whereas 000000 represents black. How to Convert Binary to Hex. Converting from binary to hex is easy since hexadecimal numbers are simplified versions of binary.
  3. Identify current uses of hexadecimal numbers in computing, such as defining colours in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, assembly languages and machine code.
  4. Download iHex for Mac - A straightforward Hex editor that helps you work with large files, generate their checksum and view detailed information about your files. All in all, iHex is a comprehensive hex editor designed from the ground up to help you preview, edit and analyze files via a user friendly.

In order to enable typing the special characters, Microsoft uses alt keys on the keyboard as a modifier. You can use the alt key and the decimal value of the Unicode character to insert symbols on your PC. Things are different on macOS. Apple keyboard has option keys (also called alt keys) which you can use to insert symbols. However, you need to use the Unicode hexadecimal values of the character which is not possible using standard input method. Therefore, you should add Unicode compatible input method to type the characters.

How to Change Unicode Hex Input Method in Mac?

Mac offers a Unicode Hex Input method to help users directlyusing the Unicode point value. Follow the below instructions to change thedefault keyboard input method.

  • Go to “Apple Menu > System Preferences…” andopen “Keyboard” preferences.
  • You will see lot of options for customizing your keyboard settings.
  • Navigate to “Input Sources” tab and first ensure to enable “Show Input menu in menu bar” checkbox. This will add an icon on the top menu bar as we have shown above. You can easily toggle the input source from the top menu bar’s icon.

Adding Unicode Hex Input Method

  • Click on the + button to add a new keyboardinput method.
  • You will see all the languages that Mac supportsin the next popup.
  • Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Others”option.
  • Select “Unicode Hex Input” and click on “Add”button.
  • Now you have successfully added Unicode inputmethod on your Mac.

Related:How to type accented letters in Mac?

Toggling Keyboard Input Method

The default English keyboard input in Mac is ABC. Check thetop menu bar on your Mac showing A icon nearer to the time. You can click onthe icon to see multiple options and change your preferred keyboard inputmethod.

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Open your document where you want to insert Unicode symbols.Click on the “Input Menu” on the top bar and choose “Unicode Hex Input” option.Now the icon should show as U+.

Typing Unicode Symbols

Hold one of the option keys and type the Unicode hexadecimal values to insert symbols. For example, option + 2A37 will produce the double circle cross sign like ⨷.

You can toggle the input method back to ABC after you typethe symbols. In most cases, you can continue with U+ input method as it shouldstill work for typing standard letters.

Limitations of Unicode Hex Input

Though it is easy to toggle the input method, it supportsonly four digit hex code value. However, Unicode has many 5 digits hex valueswhich you can’t insert using the Unicode Hex Inputs method.

The solution is to press “Command + Control + Space” andopen Character Viewer. On the search bar, you can type to five digits hex codeto find the relevant character. For example, type 1F313 to find the firstquarter moon symbol like ?.

Remember, this will work on all Mac applications. However,Character Viewer will not work on other applications like Microsoft Word on Mac.

Imagine.. you have a binary file and don't know its contents. Or some software creates binary files you have a specification for but don't want to decode them manually.

Have you ever looked at hex dumps and felt how hard it is to make sense of it? And to remember the meaning of all the bits and bytes?

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Solidworks 2001 serial. Synalyze It! allows you to create a “grammar“ for your binary files interactively. Unlike in regular hex editors or viewers the files are interpreted automatically for you! Analysis of binary files has never been easier.

Additionally Synalyze It! is a full-featured Hex Editor for Mac OS X allowing you to edit files of unlimited size and interpret the bytes with dozens of text encodings.


Essentially it’s a modeling tool for arbitrary file formats that is being used by software developers and data stream experts as well as in computer forensics.

The grammars are stored as XML files and contain all the structures that may occur in a file of a certain format, just like XML schemas. It’s even possible to inherit structures from others (like in OO languages) so you don't have to repeat for example a length field that appears at the beginning of each structure.


Synalyze It! is an extremely flexible and useful tool for viewing binary file data. It enables you to easily apply a structured format to your file bytes and convert them into meaningful displays of data.


Synalyze It! provides formatters for common binary types like ICC, PNG, TIFF, WAV, ZIP and dozens more. That alone is useful but, if you’re a programmer creating a custom binary file format, Synalyze It! is priceless.
With Synalyze It!, you can create custom data formatters for your personal binary files. Instead of struggling with cryptic lines of hexadecimal, you can view and label data values as floating point or integer, signed or unsigned, with any byte length. Your files can even modify the formatting, allowing you to create settings on the fly to variably view your data.
If the standard formatting tools are not enough, you can write formatting scripts using Python or Lua. I quickly got ambitious and was soon in over my head exploring Synalyze It!’s features. When I emailed a question to the developer, the technical support was outstanding. I was sent a complete solution to my problem that also served as an advanced Synalyze It! tutorial.
I doubt that I will ever fully exploit the potential of Synalyze It! but the value I’ve received is already many multiples of the price I paid.

John Goodman


For some well-known formats you can download grammars here. Matching grammars are suggested automatically when you open a file.

Right now you can download Synalyze It! for Mac OS X and give it a try. In case of questions or problems please give me feedback. The latest changes can be tracked here; stay tuned also on Twitter.



If you like Synalyze It! consider buying the Pro version in the Mac App Store.
The Pro version has even more useful features beyond hex editing.

Hi,

I just bought the pro version of Synalyze, and I am very glad I did. Thank you for taking the time to bring this excellent tool to life.
I’m the author of an open-source program called SleepyHead, which is used for reviewing CPAP machine data (used in Sleep Apnea treatment), and already I’m wishing I discovered Synalyze a lot sooner, as an awful lot of binary format hacking is involved thanks to the manufacturers not releasing documentation.
I particularly like being able to use expressions in the length fields. I spent ages looking through the example grammar and scripts only to find I didn’t even need them thanks to this feature. (It pays to read the manual first. ;)
Keep up the good work!
Regards
Mark Watkins


Mac Hex Editor for Professionals

There are some hex editors for Mac available but only Synalyze It! allows to create a grammar for automatic file decoding in a specialized grammar editor.

  1. Simply open the file you want to analyze
  2. Create an empty grammar
  3. Select bytes in the hex editor and add an element or structure to the grammar using the context menu
  4. Enhance the grammar in the grammar editor


Other special features of Synalyze It!:

  • Supports various encodings like ASCII, EBCDIC, UTF-8 or UTF-16 (see ICU for all supported encodings)
  • Lets you easily see if a file is compressed with the histogram view
  • Opens even huge files ultra fast by loading only the visible part of a file
  • Hex editing works with the same mouse and keyboard commands like in common text editors

In case you need a tool specialized in disk editing, I recommend to check out iBored.


Recent updates:

The Hex For Mac Shortcut

2020-01-05: Added grammar for Commander Keen 1-3 saved games
2019-09-13: Version 1.23 released with dark mode support
2019-05-16: Added grammar for Ducati Data Analyzer dda files (thank you, Jack!)
2019-02-17: Added grammar for Atari Lynx .lnx files (thank you, Brian!)
2019-02-14: Added grammar for uImage files on Linux (thank you, Lukas!)

Older additions to the web site can be found here…

The Hex For Mac Os