How to Add the Copyright Symbol on Any Device or Platform

The copyright symbol — © — is one of those characters that looks simple but trips people up constantly. It's not on most keyboards, it behaves differently across operating systems, and the "right" method depends entirely on what device and software you're using. Here's a clear breakdown of every reliable way to insert it.

What the Copyright Symbol Actually Is

The © symbol is a Unicode character (U+00A9) and an HTML entity (© or ©). Because it's part of the universal Unicode standard, it can appear in virtually any modern document, website, email, or app — the challenge is just knowing how to input it on your specific system.

How to Type © on Windows

Windows gives you several paths, and which one suits you depends on how often you need the symbol.

Keyboard Shortcut (Number Pad Required)

Hold Alt and type 0169 on your numeric keypad (not the number row at the top). Release Alt and © appears. This only works if your keyboard has a dedicated number pad and Num Lock is on.

Character Map

Open the Character Map app (search for it in the Start menu), find ©, click Copy, then paste it wherever you need it. Slow but reliable — useful if you only need the symbol occasionally.

AutoCorrect in Microsoft Office

In Word, Outlook, and other Office apps, simply type (c) and Office's AutoCorrect feature automatically converts it to ©. This is the fastest method if you're already working in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Copy-Paste from Anywhere

Honestly, one of the most practical methods: copy © from this page or any other source and paste it. Unicode characters travel cleanly across modern apps.

How to Type © on Mac

Mac keyboards are designed with symbol input in mind.

• Keyboard shortcut: Press Option + G — that's it. Works system-wide in almost every Mac app.
• Character Viewer: Go to Edit → Emoji & Symbols (or press Control + Command + Space), search for "copyright," and double-click to insert.

The Option + G shortcut is fast enough that most Mac users never need the other methods.

How to Type © on iPhone and iPad

There's no shortcut key, but iOS handles it a few ways:

• Hold the "c" key on the on-screen keyboard. A small popup appears with ©. Slide your finger to it and release.
• Text replacement: Go to Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement, add a shortcut (like /copy) that expands to ©. From that point forward, typing your shortcut auto-inserts the symbol.

The long-press method is the most discoverable. The text replacement method suits people who use the symbol regularly.

How to Type © on Android

Android's approach varies slightly by manufacturer and keyboard app, but the general path is:

• Switch to the symbols keyboard (tap ?123 or !#1 depending on your keyboard).
• Look for © directly, or tap a special characters section. On Gboard, long-pressing the letter c in some configurations also surfaces ©.
• If your keyboard doesn't surface it easily, a clipboard manager or text replacement tool achieves the same result.

How to Add © in HTML and Web Content

For web developers and anyone writing HTML directly, the copyright symbol has standardized options:

In CSS, you can insert it via the content property using '0A9'. In JavaScript, 'u00A9' returns the symbol as a string.

For most web content, © is the cleanest and most readable option in source code.

How to Insert © in Google Docs and Sheets

Google's productivity apps don't have the Office AutoCorrect shortcut for (c), but they offer:

• Insert → Special Characters, then search "copyright"
• On Mac: Option + G works directly inside Google Docs
• On Windows: Alt + 0169 (numeric keypad) also works in Docs

Google Docs also has its own Substitutions setting under Tools → Preferences → Substitutions, where you can set (c) to auto-replace with ©, mirroring Office behavior.

Variables That Affect Which Method Works Best 🖥️

Not every method works in every context. A few factors shape which approach fits your situation:

• Operating system — Mac's Option + G doesn't exist on Windows; Windows' Alt code requires a number pad
• Keyboard type — laptop keyboards often lack a dedicated number pad, which rules out the Alt code method on Windows
• App or platform — AutoCorrect behavior differs between Word, Google Docs, plain text editors, and web forms
• Input frequency — occasional use favors copy-paste or character maps; frequent use justifies setting up a text replacement rule
• Mobile vs. desktop — touchscreen keyboards expose the symbol differently than physical keyboards
• Content type — raw HTML requires entity codes; rich text editors accept the Unicode character directly

The Spectrum of Use Cases ©

Someone typing a copyright notice into a Word document once a year has very different needs than a web developer embedding the symbol programmatically across hundreds of pages, or a designer dropping it into a Figma mockup, or a social media manager adding it to Instagram captions on a phone. Each of those scenarios points toward a different method — some keyboard-based, some clipboard-based, some code-based.

The method that's genuinely frictionless for you depends on what device you're on, how your keyboard is configured, which apps sit at the center of your workflow, and how often the symbol comes up. Those details aren't universal — they're specific to your setup.