Medical Abbreviation Font Solution

[michaeljbuckner]

Ever try to type up a care plan, charting, etc. and find that when you try to use "with" (the c with the line over it) or "after" (the p with the line over it) or "without (s with a line over it) Windows does not have the characters even in Character Map?! Well I have scoured the web and have not found a downloable font to solve the issue, but I do have a solution (and better yet it's free!)

In Windows XP service Pack 2 there is a program called Private Charater Editor (it's built in). You'll have to use character Map ti insert your new characters, but once inserted can always use copy/paste from there. I created the "with" c, "without" s, and "after" p all with lines over them.

to run Private Character Editor (PCE), click on start, run, then type eudcedit . This will bring up the editor. A "select code" window will appear with a blank box selected. Click OK. A box with gridlines will open. To create the c with the line over it, click on Edit, then on Copy Character. If you are like me, I use Arial quite a bit. So on the font button, click on it and select Arial and Regular, then OK. This brings up the Arial Character set. Click on the lowecase c and then on OK. You'll have a c on your grid box. Now quick on the pencil icon in the upper left corner. I reccommend starting 4 squares above the c and creating a line 4 squares high extending to the right and left widths of the existing c. Click on File and then on Font Links; I reccomend linking with all fonts. Click OK. Now click on save character. Bring up Character map and select All fonts Private Characters. Click on your new c and copy/paste into your document. You can do the same with with the p to make an "after" symbol or the s to make a "without" symbol. Just be sure to save those characters to another empty block (which will assign new codes to your new characters and avoid overwriting your new one. Hope this helps!

[kukukajoo, LPN]

I thought all versions of windows had the character map? I have been using some characters for years. I think most have shortcut keys such as alt+0176 is the degree symbol. For some reason not letting me type it here, but it does work in Word.

[michaeljbuckner]

I believe all versions of Windows have some version of Character Map. The problem is that Character Map regardless of version does not have all the charting abbreviations/symbols we as medical professionals encounter and need. You can use ALT + (hex code) to insert a symbol into most documents (depending on your version of Word). However the PCE will let you create custom symbols as I described and Character Map will allow you to insert the new symbols. It works great for me (I'm using them now to write my L&D care plan and Fetal Assessment for school as we speak).

[rdnkmommy]

This is exactly what I have been looking for! Thanks!

[Enchantress]

I am typing up my abbreviations now...

and OMG this helped sooooooo much!

Thank you!

[Tracy Thompson]

Thanks so much. This is wonderful. Also I went into autocorrect feature and now anytime I type with, change, etc. it automatically puts the character in for me. THANKS AGAIN

[SoCalCrafter]

Any ideas for the Mac user? I've been searching the internet and the only thing I have found is to use Microsoft Word and then insert the "overbar" symbols using the Equation Editor, which takes way to long.

Any thoughts for us Mac users?

[SoCalCrafter]

Mac users rejoice! (PC users can do this too!) I went into System Preferences, and Word preferences, and Pages preferences, and in autocorrected typed in the hex codes for "with" "without" and "after" also the Rx glyph and the Micro glyph, which I just added a "g" to the end of for short hand of Microgram.

Hex codes are easy to do, there's a bunch of websites that tell you how to do them.

I used "^c" for "with" but I made another autocorrect entry of "cwith" to achieve the same resume. An entry of "^s" and an entry of "swithout" for the "without" symbol etc.

I used "*rx" as my shortcut for the Rx symbol and "*mcg" for the Micro symbol with a "g" tagged to the end of it.

Heres the codes:

overbar (also called Macron) :

c 0304

s 0304

p 0304

Recipe (Rx) :

211E

Micro symbol: 00B5