How do I type a Pound (Sterling) symbol on a MBP with Australian Keyboard

[Rod]

I know this sounds like a simple thing but what I read online would have me changing my keyboard language preferences just just to type a single character. Surely there is a simple way to bring up alternative symbol options on the fly so to speak rather than changing the Shift + 3 Key combination to a different language.

I must have missed school that day.

 

[pm-r]

Surely there is a simple way to bring up alternative symbol options on the fly

Without Reinventing the wheel and doing a lot of excess typing does this not work?:

How do I type a Pound (Sterling) symbol on a MBP with Australian Keyboard mac - Google Search

www.google.com

Or any of these:

How do I type a Pound (Sterling) symbol on a MBP with Australian Keyboard - Google Search

www.google.com

- Patrick
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[Jimmysb]

I have the keyboard viewer in my menu bar, so I can find symbols that I rarely use, it save trying to remember shortcuts.

 

[ferrarr]

Why not create a shortcut or just use the Emoji symbol?

 

[IWT]

Rod,

This may or may not help; but on my British KB, holding down the Option Key permits additional symbols like: # e´ ø ∑ ® † ¥ etc

Could it be that you could try that out and maybe get get your selected symbol?

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

£ is Option 3 on the US keyboard. You can try that.

 

[pm-r]

In El Capitan is Option 3 on the US keyboard. You can try that.

That certainly used to work in a previous macOS version (Mavericks and earlier) on my iMac, but it sure doesn't when using OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan or even using the Keyboard Viewer set for Canadian English or US keyboard. Nothing types when selecting the pound key symbol nor many others as it used to.

I wonder what is upsetting that from happening on mine and maybe the OP's keyboard

How could such a simple thing get goofed up, and something else to check out and find out why I guess.

If nothing else, try using Google to search for the character and then use a copy and paste to use this British pound symbol as a workaround. This is strange.


EDIT:
I just discovered that typing non-standard keyboard characters seems to be only a problem with the Google Chrome browser I am using, and no such problem when using Firefox browser or text edit.

The option 3 method types the British Pound symbol in both without any problem, but not when using my version of Google Chrome and OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan .
Copy and pasting from either into Google Chrome works well, ie: £.




- Patrick
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[RadDave]

Rod,

This may or may not help; but on my British KB, holding down the Option Key permits additional symbols like: # e´ ø ∑ ® † ¥ etc

Could it be that you could try that out and maybe get get your selected symbol?

Ian

£ is Option 3 on the US keyboard. You can try that.

Agree - on my US KB, the 'option key' brings up dozens of other symbols, including the £ sign with Jake's suggestion - åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…æΩ≈ç√∫˜˜µ≤≥÷ - just went through the bottom two rows of my laptop's keys. Dave

 

[Jimmysb]

Using keyboard in menu, holding options gives me this

 

[pm-r]

Surely there is a simple way to bring up alternative symbol options on the fly so to speak rather than changing the Shift + 3 Key combination to a different language.

I assume that the keyboard input method you are using does not provide you with the British pound character, so for a quick occasional access why not use Bob's keyboard preference pane suggestion or its Text and Replace character sequence.

Or if that wouldn't do maybe try Apple suggestion if you can figure out how it all works:
Tip: If you add the ABC - Extended keyboard layout, you can move seamlessly between multiple languages when typing (such as from English to Polish). You can also use this layout to type letters with accents or diacritics, or to add tone marks when typing in Pinyin for Mandarin Chinese.
Or use "dead key method":

Enter characters with accent marks on Mac

In apps on your Mac, type characters with accent marks by pressing a key on the keyboard to display an accent menu.

support.apple.com

- Patrick
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[Rod]

Thanks everybody for your valued input. I've tried all your suggestions and discovered the easiest way to do it is to simply press the fn key. That brings up the Emoji & Symbols Menu eg €, £, ℃ ect, which works fine for my needs.
Thanks again though, I learnt a lot.