It was bugging me that on Facebook, if I typed something like -20°F, the line might wrap between the minus and the 20. Then I read in Wikipedia that there is a minus sign, different from the hyphen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_and_minus_signs#Minus_sign Copying/pasting that solved my problem, but that created the new problem that I want to be able to type the minus without having to go to Wikipedia to copy/paste it. That's when I found out that I can type any UTF character by first hitting ctrl-shift-u, then typing the number, then hitting space. The minus is #2212, so this does the trick: ctrl-shift-u 2212 space Alternatively, I can hold down the ctrl-shift while typing the numbers, instead of releasing after the u, and then the UTF character appears when I release ctrl-shift and I don't have to hit the space. That doesn't work in every program, though. It worked in my browsers on Ubuntu, but I don't even know if it works outside of Ubuntu. I don't know how to use it in Emacs. There are UTF characters for °C (#2103) and °F (#2109): −40 ℃ = −40 ℉ They don't look so great in some fonts, though. Anyway, I thought some of you would be interested in that trick. I hadn't heard of it before, but I could be the last one. ;-) Mike