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ACADE M IC T EC H NO LO G Y , M AT H

Type Math on a Mac—

Remapping My
Keyboard
Posted by DAV E RI CHE S ON on JA N UA R Y 18 , 2 025

I use LaTeX to type mathematical documents.

However, I often want to type mathematics when
LaTeX is unavailable—for instance, in an email to a
student, in a social media post, etc. To do so, I
typically go to one of the many websites that offer
“copy-and-paste” mathematical symbols, Greek
letters, or subscript/superscripts. It is do-able but
annoying.

For Christmas, my son made me a mechanical

keyboard. It was so thoughtful—a solid keyboard
base with high-quality switches and elegant
keycaps. There are many ways to customize the
keyboard. I asked him if it was possible to enable it
to type Greek letters and other mathematical
notation using various key combinations. He looked
into it and found a fantastic method that should
work for any keyboard (on a Mac).

Basically, you create a text file called

DefaultKeyBinding.dict and put it in a folder called
Keybindings in your Library. (In the Finder, select
the “Go” menu while pressing the option key. You’ll
see you can open your Library. In it, create the
Keybindings folder and put your text file in there.)
For it to take effect in an app you’re using, you need
to restart the app after modifying the dict file.

The text file could look something like this:

{ 
// double slashes indicate comments
"~#2" = (insertText:, "\U2082"); //
option-2 on the number pad will produce
the subscript 2
"~$#2" = (insertText:, "\U00B2"); //
option-shift-2 on the nubmer pad will
produce superscript 2
"~t" = (insertText:, "\U03B8"); //
option-t produces a theta
"~$D" = (insertText:, "\U0394"); //
option-shift-D will produce a capital
delta
"~$E" = (insertText:, "\U2203"); //
option-shift-E will produce the "there
exists" symbol
}

As you should be able to tell, the first part of each

line tells what modifier keys you need to press along
with the key on the keyboard. They are
~ : option
$ : shift
^ : control
@ : command
# : numpad
The output is the Unicode for the desired symbol. I
found this Wikipedia page helpful in finding the
Unicode for my desired characters.

I created key combinations that type many of the

Greek letters in lower case, some of them
capitalized, basic set notation (intersection, union,
subset, element of, etc.), the “blackboard bold”
notation for sets of numbers (like the real numbers
and the integers), and so on. I created a way to get
superscripts and subscripts by using the option key
or shift-option and typing on the number pad.

Finally, I made a cheat sheet to help me remember

what’s where on my keyboard.

In case you are interested, here’s the file I created. (I

tried to upload the file so it could be downloaded,
but this blogging platform did not allow me to do so.
You’ll have to copy and paste this into your own text
file.) There were a few that didn’t work for me—like
remapping option-shift-#—I suspect that there is
some escape code that would make it work, but I
didn’t look into it.

{ 
// Save as
~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding
.dict
// ~ : option
// $ : shift
// # : numpad
// ^ : control
// @ : command
// helpful website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Sym
bols

// subscript (option + numpad 0-9)

"~#0" = (insertText:, "\U2080"); //
subscript 0 ₀
"~#1" = (insertText:, "\U2081"); //
subscript 1 ₁
"~#2" = (insertText:, "\U2082"); //
subscript 2 ₂
"~#3" = (insertText:, "\U2083"); //
subscript 3 ₃
"~#4" = (insertText:, "\U2084"); //
subscript 4 ₄
"~#5" = (insertText:, "\U2085"); //
subscript 5 ₅
"~#6" = (insertText:, "\U2086"); //
subscript 6 ₆
"~#7" = (insertText:, "\U2087"); //
subscript 7 ₇
"~#8" = (insertText:, "\U2088"); //
subscript 8 ₈
"~#9" = (insertText:, "\U2089"); //
subscript 9 ₉

// superscript (option + shift +

numpad 0-9)
"~$#0" = (insertText:, "\U2070"); //
superscript 0 ⁰
"~$#1" = (insertText:, "\U00B9"); //
superscript 1 ¹
"~$#2" = (insertText:, "\U00B2"); //
superscript 2 ²
"~$#3" = (insertText:, "\U00B3"); //
superscript 3 ³
"~$#4" = (insertText:, "\U2074"); //
superscript 4 ⁴
"~$#5" = (insertText:, "\U2075"); //
superscript 5 ⁵
"~$#6" = (insertText:, "\U2076"); //
superscript 6 ⁶
"~$#7" = (insertText:, "\U2077"); //
superscript 7 ⁷
"~$#8" = (insertText:, "\U2078"); //
superscript 8 ⁸
"~$#9" = (insertText:, "\U2079"); //
superscript 9 ⁹

// option + letter
// "~1" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~2" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~3" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~4" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~5" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---infinity ∞
// "~6" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~7" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~8" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---bullet symbol •
// "~9" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~0" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~-" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---en-dash –
// "~=" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---not equal ≠
"~a" = (insertText:, "\U03B1"); // α
"~b" = (insertText:, "\U03B2"); // β
"~c" = (insertText:, "\U03B5"); // ε
"~d" = (insertText:, "\U03B4"); // δ
// "~e" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces the acute accent
"~f" = (insertText:, "\U03C6"); // φ
"~g" = (insertText:, "\U03B3"); // γ
"~h" = (insertText:, "\U03B7"); // η
// "~i" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces an accent
"~j" = (insertText:, "\U03C4"); // τ
"~k" = (insertText:, "\U03BA"); // κ
"~l" = (insertText:, "\U03BB"); // λ
"~m" = (insertText:, "\U03BC"); // μ
// "~n" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces an accent
// "~o" = (insertText:, ""); //
"~p" = (insertText:, "\U03C0"); // π
"~q" = (insertText:, "\U03BE"); // ξ
"~r" = (insertText:, "\U03C1"); // ρ
"~s" = (insertText:, "\U03C3"); // σ
"~t" = (insertText:, "\U03B8"); // θ
// "~u" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces the umlaut
"~v" = (insertText:,"\U03BD"); // ν
"~w" = (insertText:, "\U03C9"); // ω
"~x" = (insertText:, "\U03C7"); // χ
"~y" = (insertText:, "\U03C8"); // ψ
"~z" = (insertText:, "\U03B6"); // ζ
// "~`" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces an accent
"~[" = (insertText:, "\U2229"); //
intersection ∩
"~]" = (insertText:, "\U222A"); //
union ∪
// "~\" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~;" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~'" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~," = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces less than or equal to
≤
// "~." = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces greater than or equal
to ≥
// "~/" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---produces the division symbol ÷

// option + shift + letter

// "~$~" = (insertText:, ""); //
leave alone---causes an error
"~$!" = (insertText:, "\U2248"); //
≈
// "~$@" = (insertText:, ""); //
leave alone---causes an error
// "~$#" = (insertText:, ""); //
leave alone---causes an error
// "~$$" = (insertText:, ""); //
leave alone---causes an error
"~$%" = (insertText:, "\U222B"); //
∫
// "~$^" = (insertText:, ""); //
leave alone---causes an error
"~$&" = (insertText:, "\U221A"); //
√
// "~$*" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---degree symbol °
"~$(" = (insertText:, "\U27E8"); //
left angle bracket ⟨
"~$)" = (insertText:, "\U27E9"); //
right angle bracket ⟩
// "~$_" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---em-dash —
// "~$+" = (insertText:, ""); // Leave
alone---plus-minus ±
"~$A" = (insertText:, "\U2200"); //
for all ∀
"~$B" = (insertText:, "\U2135"); //
Alef
"~$C" = (insertText:, "\U2102"); //
Complex numbers ℂ
"~$D" = (insertText:, "\U0394"); //
Delta Δ
"~$E" = (insertText:, "\U2203"); //
there exists ∃
"~$F" = (insertText:, "\U220A"); //
element of ∊
"~$G" = (insertText:, "\U0393"); //
Gamma Γ
"~$H" = (insertText:, "\U2190"); //
left arrow ←
"~$I" = (insertText:, "\U2194"); //
double arrow ↔
"~$J" = (insertText:, "\U21D0"); //
double left arrow ⇐
"~$K" = (insertText:, "\U21D2"); //
doubleright arrow ⇒
"~$L" = (insertText:, "\U2192"); //
right arrow →
"~$M" = (insertText:, "\U2193"); //
down arrow ↓
"~$N" = (insertText:, "\U2115"); //
Natural numbers ℕ
"~$O" = (insertText:, "\U2207"); //
nabla (gradient) ∇
"~$P" = (insertText:, "\U2119"); //
Projective plane ℙ
"~$Q" = (insertText:, "\U211A"); //
Rational numbers ℚ
"~$R" = (insertText:, "\U211D"); //
Real numbers ℝ
"~$S" = (insertText:, "\U03A3"); // Σ
// "~$T" = (insertText:, ""); //
"~$U" = (insertText:, "\U2191"); //
up arrow ↑
"~$V" = (insertText:, "\U2209"); //
not an element of ∉
// "~$W" = (insertText:, ""); //
"~$X" = (insertText:, "\U2A2F"); //
times/cross product ⨯
// "~$Y" = (insertText:, ""); //
"~$Z" = (insertText:, "\U2124"); //
Integers ℤ
"~${" = (insertText:, "\U2227"); //
and ∧
"~$}" = (insertText:, "\U2228"); //
or ∨
// "~$|" = (insertText:, ""); //
"~$:" = (insertText:, "\U039B"); //
Gamma Λ
// "~$"" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~$:" = (insertText:, ""); //
// "~$"" = (insertText:, "\U2228"); //
Leave alone---causes an error
"~$<" = (insertText:, "\U2286"); //
subset ⊆
"~$>" = (insertText:, "\U2287"); //
supset ⊇
// "~$?" = (insertText:, ""); //
}

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Dave Richeson
Professor of Mathematics
Dickinson College
Twitter: divbyzero

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