The Control Key

By Xah Lee. Date: .

2023-03-28 xtodo work in progress

Symbol for Control Key

✲ (OPEN CENTRE ASTERISK) is printed on Microsoft Keyboards .

⎈ (HELM SYMBOL) is used on MacBook Pro keyboard, French Canadian Layout for the Control key, and sometimes used to indicate Control key in Linux documentation.

^ (CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT) (aka caret) is the character on normal keyboard, shifted 6. It is the classic notation to indicate ASCII control character in programing, and also used as a notation for pressing Control key for inputting control sequence. The symbol is mostly used in 1970s to 1990s, in documentation or from online posts by user.

⌃ (UP ARROWHEAD) , the actual character used by Apple website as of 2017-07, in menu, in documentation.

Microsoft Digital Media kbd 3000 vvjPY
Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard 3000 (2008). Note the symbols for Ctrl key, 🪟 Windows key, CapsLock key, Tab key. Also, help (F1), undo (F2), redo (F3). Also, rocker key for zoom in/out, and key for camera, documents.
MacBook Pro French Canadian vhfZN
MacBook Pro keyboard, French Canadian Layout
Note the HELM SYMBOL ⎈ on Ctrl, ⇮ on Alt, ⇬ on CapsLock, ⎆ on Enter.

The caret character ^ and UP ARROWHEAD ⌃ are not good to represent the Control key, because it confuses with the printable caret character on the keyboard, the shifted digit 6 key.

[see Unicode: Keyboard Symbols ⌘ ↵ ⌫]

Control Key Positions