Is anywhere to find the normal male and female symbols, used by biologists? Wanted for Word and Excel, variable size.

The ♀ and ♂ are the so-called Venus and Mars symbols. You can create them in Word by typing 2640, Alt-x and 2642, Alt-x, respectively.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Wonderfully quick response, thanks, but still not clear to me!
I type 2640 and then shift+alt+x ...... results in 2640ˇ
*or print also the comma, and also a period? still not good.... I tried also other....

Valid also on a MacBook Pro? (should have added this in question)

jan

Did I say "shift+alt+x"? On a Mac, the equivalent to Alt-x may be Cmd-x. Another approach is to use Insert|Symbol (or whatever the Mac equivalent is), select 'Unicode (Hex)' for the characters to choose from, then type 2640 or 2642 into the 'Character code' box.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Sorry Paul, maybe I don't perceive this correctly,or something in Mac is more different... 2640 + Cmd + x do not work, even if I am not sure how you mean these should be pressed, in sequence of "paralell"...?
The alternative way; Insert>Symbol I find but not anything called Unicode (Hex), neither any character code box....
For now I solved my need by copy-paste ♀ and ♂ from your first answer into my Excel document!
so thanks anyway! / jan

As indicated preiously, you'd type the 2640, then press Cmd-x (i.e. Cmd & x together). As for the Insert|Symbol dialogue, you may have to specify a font before you can input the Unicode details.

PS: FWIW, having copied the symbols from the forum and pasted them into Word or Excel, if you select one and use Insert|Symbol, that should show you exactly how they're accessed on a Mac.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

After much gnashing of teeth and hair pulling, I found these symbols in the Word for Mac 2011 advanced symbols menu. They are in a number of character sets, the first one I found them in was Yuppy SC Regular. Then I found them in most of the Asian character sets: they have a scroll bar on the side, just a bit of searching to find them. After all that, when checking my facts before writing this post, I went back to the symbols window and it was opened in (normal text), which is at the very top of the font list, and wouldn't you know it, there were the female and male symbols sitting there in plain view. Grr. Hope this helps somebody else. Actually, the range of scientific symbols in the Asian character sets are much more extensive.