Key's symbol identification/function request!

[donnac202]

Hi-
On the Mac keyboard there's a key right below the delete key. This key has two symbols on it. The upper one is a vertical line, the lower one is a forward slash (upper left to lower right corners). What is that upper symbol called? (total brainfade over here) I know it used to be used as part of a keystroke combination to create a return, so that the following lines of the paragraph would observe that alignment... Does anyone know what I'm trying to say?? I used to use it when entering a lot of text, vs a tab on each line... TIA!

 

[chrfr]

Hi-
On the Mac keyboard there's a key right below the delete key. This key has two symbols on it. The upper one is a vertical line, the lower one is a forward slash (upper left to lower right corners). What is that upper symbol called? (total brainfade over here) I know it used to be used as part of a keystroke combination to create a return, so that the following lines of the paragraph would observe that alignment... Does anyone know what I'm trying to say?? I used to use it when entering a lot of text, vs a tab on each line... TIA!

That \ is a backslash. The forward slash / is on the key with the question mark, but I don't think this is relevant to your particular question. Have you tried shift-return to see if that does what you expect?

 

[njvm]

@donnac202 - this key '|' - isn't it called the pipe key?

 

[DeltaMac]

The vertical line is usually called a "pipe"

 

[joevt]

Or "vertical bar". The macOS Character Viewer says "vertical line".

 

[MacManiac76]

It's definitely called the pipe key when using it in Terminal or other command line interface apps.

 

[canuckRus]

Hi-
On the Mac keyboard there's a key right below the delete key. This key has two symbols on it. The upper one is a vertical line, the lower one is a forward slash (upper left to lower right corners). What is that upper symbol called? (total brainfade over here) I know it used to be used as part of a keystroke combination to create a return, so that the following lines of the paragraph would observe that alignment... Does anyone know what I'm trying to say?? I used to use it when entering a lot of text, vs a tab on each line... TIA!

|		pipe
/		forward slash, stroke, virgule, oblique dash?
\		backslash

 

[HDFan]

I had thought that the pipe key name came from Unix:

A pipe is a form of redirection in Linux used to connect the STDOUT of one command into the STDIN of a second command.

but it turns out that it is much, much older and has many uses:

in the Geneva Bible and early printings of the King James Version, the double vertical bar is used to indicate that an alternative translation is to be found

in addition to its use in physics and mathematics.

 

[donnac202]

Wow, no idea- thank you!

The way I used to use it when typesetting (the pipe didn't visually show up in the text) was pretty much as a "left align". I attached a couple things to illustrate... The first one is in "show invisibles" mode so it's visible here. Normally the lines beneath it, as long as they don't have a hard carriage return, will left-align. In the 2nd attachment I illustrated how each line (without the pipe keystroke) requires an inserted tab (or two) to make it do the same thing. I've forgotten the additional keystrokes in the 1st one that would cause the following ones to line up to it (if they have no hard returns).
I'm hoping that clarifies my question? Thx, Donna