How to Make the Copyright Symbol on Your Computer

The copyright symbol (©) is a special character commonly used by photographers and other content creators. While copyright law doesn't require its use, the symbol is easily recognizable and lends an air of credibility to your intellectual property, so knowing how to type the copyright symbol on Windows and Mac can come in handy.

How to Make the Copyright Symbol

The copyright logo/symbol can be made on a Windows computer with the numerical keypad. The "Alt code" keyboard shortcut for the copyright symbol is Alt-0169, so hold down the Alt key while typing 0169.

How to Use Alt Codes

For most laptops and other compressed keyboards, the process is different. Look for tiny numbers above the 7, 8, 9, U, I, O, J, K, L, and M keys. They act as 0-9 when Num Lock is activated.

Here's how to make the copyright symbol without a numerical keypad:

Press Fn-NumLk to turn on Num Lock.

You might instead have a designated NumLK key, or it might be mapped to another key.
Locate the numeric keys. If you don't see the numbers on the keys, try them anyway: M=0, J=1, K=2, L=3, U=4, I=5, O=6, 7=7, 8=8, 9=9.
Hold down the Alt key and type 0169 on the numeric keys (some laptops also require you to hold down Fn as you type).
Release all the keys to see the © symbol in your text.

For Mac computers, you can make the copyright symbol with just two keystrokes: hold down the Option key and then hit the g key.

Other Options for Typing the Copyright Logo

If the keyboard shortcut seems like too much work, you can always copy a copyright symbol from elsewhere (like this page) and paste it into your text. The © symbol is also included in the Character Map tool in Windows and the Character Viewer tool in macOS.

Here's how to get the copyright symbol from the character map tool:

Windows

Open the Start menu and search for map. Select Character Map when you see it.

If you can't find Character Map there, use the Run dialog box (WIN-R) to enter the charmap command.
Double-click the copyright symbol to make it appear in the text field at the bottom of this window, and then select Copy. You can now paste the copyright logo into any application.

Mac

From the Finder menu, select Edit > Emoji & Symbols.

The keyboard shortcut for this menu is Control-Command-Space.
Select Letterlike Symbols in the menu on the left.
Right-click the copyright symbol, or one of the variations from the bottom right side of the window, and select Copy Character Info to add it to your clipboard.