How to Type Special Characters or Emoji on your Android Phone

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 24 Oct 2014

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Need to stick a tilde over an N or add an accent mark over an E? Or maybe you want to add an Emoji to your text messages? How to get them on Android. Here’s where to look.

Typing Special Characters

You can type special characters in just about any app using the standard Android keyboard. Press and hold the key associated with the unique character, a pop-up appears. Place the finger on the unique character you want. The special character will appear.

KEY 1 — **Press hold the N key to get an N with a tilde over it.**

Mostly, the critical associations for these particular characters are pretty intuitive. The ñ press N key, é press E key and monetary symbols such as the Yen and Euro press $. The best way to feel for what the keyboard can do, open an app that you can type and play around with the keyboard. Don’t worry. You aren’t going to break anything.

How to use an Emoji

If you want to use Emoji characters, you’ll find them under the return key or the search key, which looks like a magnifying glass if you’re typing into a search field. First, press and hold the return key, and drag your finger over the little smiley-face icon. The Emoji keyboard will pop up.