oh, if you're using word, you could just go Insert>symbol and look through the char.s there. also, in some versions you can assign your own short cuts that only work in word. I only bothered learning the alt codes so that I could use these symbols in html textboxes. also, if you find you need extremely obscure letters, might I suggest installing junicode. To install a font, download the file, go into the control panel (this is all assuming you run a version of windows, I don't know macs), click on fonts File>Install New Fonts, find the folder ou downloaded, and let it do its magic.