I remember reading an advert that was published across a range of magazines several years ago which read something along the lines of: "if u cn rd ths msg u cld bcm scrtry & gt gd offc jb". Convinced that shorthand was as simple as deciphering a few cryptic consonants and adding in the missing vowels, I decided that it would, therefore, be just as easy to become a PA. With retrospect I should not, perhaps, have believed the ad - but at least it might have made texting easier.

Just as texting is now part of our language, the way we use words and symbols has constantly evolved over many centuries. As the printed word became more popular punctuation was introduced gently. The majority of text was written in order to be read or sang out loud. Copyists introduced a range of marks to aid the reader, including indentation, various punctuation marks and an early version of initial capitals. The earliest form of text, for example, did not include capitalisation, there were no spaces and only a few punctuation marks. The oldest known document using punctuation is from the 9th century BC, and shows points between words and horizontal strokes as a form of punctuation.

Using the correct punctuation marks and symbols is now as important as using correct grammar and spelling. And if you use Microsoft Word 2007, it's easy to unlock the mystery of symbols and signs with the click of a mouse. With Word 2007, for example, you can use the symbol dialog box to insert symbols, such as ¼ and ©, or special characters, such as an em dash (-) or ellipsis (...) that are not on your keyboard, as well as Unicode characters.

The types of symbols and characters that you can insert depend on the font you are using. For example, some fonts may include fractions (¼), international characters (Ç, ë), and international monetary symbols (£, ¥). The built-in symbol font includes arrows, bullets, and scientific symbols. You might also have additional symbol fonts, such as Wingdings, that include decorative symbols. It's easy to insert a unicode character into a document by selecting a character from the symbol dialog box or by typing the character code directly in a document. When you select a unicode character in the symbol dialog box, its character code appears in the character code box.

To insert a symbol into your Word document, simply click where you want to insert the symbol. On the insert tab, in the symbols group, click symbol. You can either now select the symbol in the drop-down list or, if the symbol that you need to insert is not in the list, click "More Symbols". If you are using an expanded font, such as Arial or Times New Roman, the subset list appears. Use this list to choose from an extended list of language characters, including Greek and Russian (Cyrillic), if available.

To insert a special character, then simply click "More Symbols", and select the "Special Characters" tab. Now click the character that you would like to use, and select "Insert". To insert international characters in your document, you can use a keyboard shortcut, or if you type extensively in another language, you might want to switch to a different keyboard.

Now that you know how easy it is to access the symbol dialog box, you can customise Word so that the dialog box opens when you click a toolbar button or press a function key or keyboard shortcut. You can add an "Insert Symbol" button to any toolbar, and assign a keyboard shortcut to the symbol dialog box, or open the symbol dialog box with a function key or key combination, such as CTRL+SHIFT+F2 or CTRL+SHIFT+?.

If you reassign a keyboard shortcut, you can no longer use that combination for its original purpose. For example, by default, pressing CTRL+B changes selected text to bold. If you reassign CTRL+B to a new command or other item, you can no longer make text bold by pressing this combination unless you restore the keyboard shortcut assignments to the original settings. To find out if a keyboard shortcut is already assigned to a symbol, click the symbol in the symbol dialog box, and look for a keyboard shortcut next to the text shortcut key at the bottom of the symbol dialog box.

If you use a particular character or symbol often, it's easy to set up a quick way to add it by using a keyboard shortcut or an AutoCorrect entry. You can find both options in the symbols dialog box. You need to set up the AutoCorrect entry or keyboard shortcut for each symbol or special character (except a few that are built in), but you have to do it only once.

You may find the AutoCorrect entries easier to remember than keyboard shortcuts; it all depends on the way that you like to work. With an AutoCorrect entry, you type a sequence of letters and watch those letters change to the symbol or character you want.

A useful way to learn more about what symbols mean and their application is to work with the symbol dialog box on your desktop. You can increase or decrease the size of the dialog box on the "More Symbols" view. Move the pointer to the lower-right corner of the dialog box, and then drag to the size that you want. This way you can learn the quick key commands and also remember what each symbol means without feeling as if you are decoding a cryptic code message.