Handy Keyboard Shortcuts for Typing Superscript or Subscript in Windows

Occasionally you may find yourself wanting to type superscript (see the adjacent graphic) or subscript (102). You can do this through the Font dialog box, but there is a much faster way. superscript
For superscript, simply press Ctrl + Shift + + (press and hold Ctrl and Shift, then press +). For subscript, press CTRL + = (press and hold Ctrl, then press =). Pressing the respective shortcut again will get you back to normal text.

Comments

  1. Thank you for this.

    Just tried it in Outlook and it worked, but only with the + sign on the top row of the keyboard, not with the + sign on the numberpad.

  2. Clevershortcut does not work on Chrome for webmail, all that happens is that the font size increases (as you can see here – I tried it on this page first). I use Virgin and Gmail as webmail. Any other suggestions?

  3. Doesn’t seem to work in excel.. is there another trick to this?

  4. The trick is being inside a program (like Word) that supports subscript and/or superscript. A couple of superscript characters (¹,²,³) are included in most fonts that include unicode/ascii extensions. See Windows Character Map or your OS’s equivalent for finding these characters.

    These features do not work in most web browsers or even some design software, as the shortcuts listed above simply resize ALL page text and images.

  5. Thanks to David Scrimshaw for the tip that the shortcut works ONLY with the top row + key.
    I was getting frustrated. Worked like a charm! Thanks again!

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