If you need to type special characters or symbols that you can’t find on the keyboard, such as £, $, ¥, ©, ½, etc., then, press Start and type Character Map. Then, hit enter, or select Character Map from the list to open the Character Map.
From there you can find the special character or symbol you are looking for, choose a font if necessary, and learn the keystroke to type that character. You can double-click the character to select it, then copy it using the copy button and paste the character into the document or app you are using.
(Copy and Paste can also be achieved by pressing Cntrl + C and Cntrl + V.)
Update: You can now also find special characters or symbols via the emoji panel. To open the emoji panel press the Windows key on your keyboard plus the semicolon or period.
Windows + ; – Open emoji quick access panel
or
Windows + . – Open emoji quick access panel
Then click the symbols icon. The different symbols are shown in groups which you can show by clicking on the category icons at the bottom of the window.
As well as special characters or symbols, you can also access emoji and kaomoji in Windows 10.