: How can I type a sharp or flat In a computer file name? When I name a file of a music score on the computer, I use a 'b' as flat and '#' as sharp. My question is is there in any way to use the real sharp or flat? It's not

? & ?
I use the system typing replacer.
System prefs > Keyboard > Text

All my triggers start with 'nc' for historical reasons, so 'ncsharp' becomes ? & 'ncflat' becomes ?.
I'm on Mac, so I've no idea about alt-codes for Windows, but if someone knows those... feel free to add.

Windows seems to handle these in file & folder names just fine - examples from Mac & Win7...

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When I name a file of a music score on the computer, I use a 'b' as flat and '#' as sharp. My question is is there in the ascii code a way to use the real sharp or flat?

No. There is nothing in ASCII. ASCII only has 128 characters, there's no place for musical notation in there.

Unicode, however has over 136000 (out of 1114112) assigned codepoints (as of now, more are added regularly) including 544 musical ones. The codepoints you are looking for are:

? U+266F MUSIC SHARP SIGN
? U+266D MUSIC FLAT SIGN

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There's a way in Windows, without installing any additional software, to be able to write those Unicode characters out of thin air using ALT + Unicode hex number.

If somebody wants to memorize those codes, he would be able to type them from thin air in a file name, a word document, notepad or other.

First as described here, you need to enable EnableHexNumpad in your registry under the following key below.

Way #1 to do the registry change easily:

To do so, the easiest and fastest way is to download this .reg file and double click on it.

Click here to download it

Double click on it:

Reboot your computer.

Way #2 to do the registry change by hand:

If you're uncomfortable trying below, please use Way #1 .

First, open the registry editor by going on Start > Run (or by pressing + R) and typing regedit:

Then navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelInput Method

And right-click in the right-hand side box and choose New > String Value, call it EnableHexNumpad, and set it to 1:

Once you're done and it looks like the image above, just close RegEdit and reboot your computer.

Continue here:

Now you'll be able to type the hex codes directly using ALT + your numpad. Important detail is that you should enter the Hexadecimal code of the musical character (or any other unicode character) you're trying to type.

As a quick reference, here they are:

? 2669 quarter note
? 266A eighth note
? 266B beamed eighth notes
? 266C beamed sixteenth notes
? 266D music flat sign
? 266E music natural sign
? 266F music sharp sign

So now I'm going to do it for the music flat sign character. Its hexadecimal code is 266d, so I would just have to type:

ALT + + + 266d

And once I release the ALT key I got:

?

Note that you actually have to press on the numpad's + key after ALT. So it's ALT followed by + followed by the 4 number/characters.

Here I've put it in a filename:

Hope it helps somebody out there!

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If you want ascii this site has a list of music related ascii codes: www.alt-codes.net/music_note_alt_codes.php
these are mainly the ones you asked about:

? Flat note ♭
? Natural note ♮
? Sharp note ♯

here are all the UNIcodes for music symbols: unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D100.pdf
i was able to take this symbol: ? and paste into a file name on my windows machine. that may be the easiest way. good luck.

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