How to Type the Degree Symbol (°) on Any Laptop Keyboard

There's no degree key on a keyboard, but every laptop can type the ° symbol with a short key combination. Here are the shortcuts, up front:

Where you're typing	Shortcut for °
Windows (with number pad)	Hold Alt, type 0176 on the numpad, release Alt
Windows (no number pad)	Win + . opens the symbol panel → Ω tab
Mac	Option + Shift + 8
Microsoft Word	Type 00B0, then press Alt + X
Chromebook	Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00b0, press Enter
Linux (GNOME)	Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00b0, press Enter
iPhone / Android	Switch to the number keyboard, long-press 0

Read on for exactly how each method works, what to do when a shortcut fails (usually a NumLock or layout issue), and how to avoid the two lookalike characters (º and ˚) that aren't actually degree signs.

Typing the degree symbol on a Windows laptop

Alt code: Alt + 0176 (or Alt + 248)

The classic method, and still the fastest if your laptop has a number pad. Click where you want the symbol, hold down the Alt key, type 0176 on the numeric keypad, then release Alt. The ° appears instantly — no copy-paste needed. Microsoft documents this shortcut, and it works in any Windows app, not just Word.

Alt + 248 produces exactly the same ° character — 248 is the symbol's position in the old DOS character set, while 0176 is its position in the Windows character set. Use whichever you remember.

Two things to check if nothing happens:

• NumLock must be on, and the digits must come from the numeric keypad — the number row above the letters won't trigger Alt codes.
• No numpad? Some laptops hide one on the letter keys (activated with the Fn key — look for small digits printed on M, J, K, L and neighbors), but this varies by manufacturer. If your laptop doesn't have one, use the emoji panel method below instead — it's built for exactly this situation.

The Windows symbol panel: Win + .

Press the Windows key + period (.) and Windows 11's emoji panel pops up. Click the Ω (symbols) tab and browse the punctuation/Latin symbol categories to find ° — once you've used it, it appears in your recently-used list, making the second time much faster. Note that the panel's search box only searches emoji and GIFs, not symbols, so you'll need to spot ° by eye the first time.

This is the best method for laptops without a number pad, and it works in any app that accepts text.

Character Map

Windows 11 still ships the veteran Character Map app. Type "Character Map" in the Start search, open it, tick Advanced view, search for degree sign, double-click the symbol, and press Copy. Then paste it wherever you need it. Slower than the shortcuts, but it works everywhere and lets you grab any character Windows knows about.

Typing the degree symbol in Word and Google Docs

Microsoft Word has two tricks of its own:

• Type 00B0, then press Alt + X. Word converts the code into ° on the spot. This is Microsoft's documented Unicode shortcut and it works for any symbol once you know its code.
• Ctrl + Shift + 2, then the spacebar. A lesser-known Word-only trick: this is technically Word's ring-accent shortcut (for å), but pressing space after it drops a ° instead. Handy if you type temperatures often.

You can also go through Insert → Symbol → More Symbols and pick ° from the Latin-1 Supplement subset — after the first use it sits in the Recently Used Symbols row.

Google Docs: go to Insert → Symbols → Special characters, then type "degree" in the search field — or draw a small circle in the drawing box and Docs will suggest °. (This menu isn't available in Google Sheets; there, copy a ° from Docs or use the OS-level shortcuts above.)

Typing the degree symbol on a Mac

On a MacBook, press Option + Shift + 8. That's the whole trick — it types a true degree sign (°) in any app, and it works on every keyboard layout Apple ships.

Watch out for two near-misses that older guides (including an earlier version of this one) get wrong:

• Option + 0 types º — the masculine ordinal indicator used in Spanish and Portuguese (as in 1º). It looks similar but is a different character, often rendered with an underline.
• Option + K types ˚ — the ring-above accent mark. Also not a degree sign.

For temperatures, stick with Option + Shift + 8.

If you'd rather pick from a list, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + Cmd + Space (or press Fn/Globe + E, or choose Edit → Emoji & Symbols in almost any app), then search for "degree" — Apple's guide covers it. Double-click the symbol to insert it at your cursor.

Typing the degree symbol on a Chromebook

ChromeOS has a long-standing Unicode shortcut: press Ctrl + Shift + U, release (a small underlined u appears), type 00b0, then press Enter. The code turns into °.

It works in most text fields but not all — notably it's unreliable inside Google Docs, where you should use Insert → Symbols → Special characters instead.

Typing the degree symbol on Linux

Two options, depending on your setup:

• GNOME/GTK apps: the same Ctrl + Shift + U, then 00b0, then Enter — built in, no configuration needed.
• Compose key: if you've enabled a Compose key (Settings → Keyboard on GNOME), press Compose, o, o — two lowercase o's — and you get °. Compose sequences are worth setting up if you type special characters often.

Typing the degree symbol on a phone or tablet

On both iPhone and Android, switch the on-screen keyboard to numbers (tap 123 or ?123), then touch and hold the 0 key. A small pop-up appears with ° — slide your finger onto it and release. On a few Android keyboards the 0 long-press gives a superscript zero (⁰) instead; in that case look for ° in the second symbols page (=<).

° vs º vs ˚ — make sure you typed the right one

There are three lookalike circles in Unicode, and only one is the degree sign:

Symbol	What it is	When to use
° (U+00B0)	Degree sign	Temperatures and angles: 25°C, 90°
º (U+00BA)	Masculine ordinal indicator	Spanish/Portuguese ordinals: 1º
˚ (U+02DA)	Ring-above accent	The diacritic in Å — not for temperatures

Why care? Search, find-and-replace, and data tools treat them as different characters — a spreadsheet filter looking for "°C" won't match "ºC". If a document mixes them, temperatures can silently fail to match. (There are also single-character ℃ and ℉ symbols in Unicode, but standard practice is typing ° followed by C or F.)

For the web, the HTML entity is &deg;.

Frequently asked questions

How do I type °C or °F? Type the degree symbol with any method above, then the letter — no space between them: 25°C, 77°F. There's no need for the special single-character ℃/℉ symbols.

Why doesn't Alt + 0176 work on my laptop? Almost always one of two reasons: NumLock is off, or you're using the number row above the letters instead of a true numeric keypad. Alt codes only respond to numpad digits. On numpad-less laptops, use Win + . (symbol panel) or, in Word, 00B0 followed by Alt + X.

Is there a degree key on any keyboard? Not on standard US layouts, but several international layouts do have one — for example, the degree sign sits on Shift + the key left of Backspace on German layouts. If you type temperatures all day, most operating systems also let you set up text replacement (e.g., "dgr" → °) in keyboard settings.

What's the Alt code for the degree symbol? Alt + 0176 or Alt + 248 — both produce the identical ° character on Windows.

Other symbols

Now that you know the trick, the same methods (Alt codes, the Win + . panel, Word's Alt + X, and Mac's Option combinations) type nearly any special character. If you also need the pi symbol, we've written up 5 easy ways to type π on a laptop.