Text Symbols / Character Map (charmap)

Revit does not use some of the text symbol shortcuts that Autocad can use, but it does support Windows Character Map. Autocad also supports Windows Character Map.

Go to the Windows Run command (keyboard shortcut: Windows button + R)
Enter the command “charmap” and you will get the following dialog box:

Click on the desired character symbol and press “select”
You can now paste it into your text box in Revit or AutoCAD.

Back in the Character Map dialog box, you will notice when you select some symbols, in the bottom right corner, you will see the relevant keyboard symbol shortcut: Alt + ****. Ensure you are using the numeric keypad for the shortcuts (right numbered section of the keyboard and not the numbers across the top over the letters). The symbols I tend to use a lot:

° (degree symbol) = Alt + 0176
² (squared symbol) = Alt + 0178
³ (cubed symbol) = Alt + 0179

Thanks Shane for reminding me of this. I did to use this system when I was first using AutoCAD 12, but I had totally forgotten about it.