How to use Greek Letters in Excel

by | Dec 9, 2021 | Excel Tips & Tricks

How to use Greek Letters in Excel

Greek letters are commonly used in various areas, like mathematics and science as symbols for constants or variables, or even in the game industry to define phases of a product. They are also commonly used nowadays with naming new COVID-19 variants. If you need them in your worksheet, this article will show you how to use Greek Letters in Excel.

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Copy & Paste

You can simply copy & paste the character from here:

α Α β Β γ Γ δ Δ ε Ε ζ Ζ η Η θ Θ ι Ι κ Κ λ Λ μ Μ ν Ν ξ Ξ ο Ο π Π ρ Ρ σ Σ τ Τ υ Υ φ Φ χ Χ ψ Ψ ω Ω

Enjoy. 🙂

Symbols

Excel (and Word) has a feature named Symbol which is a dialog that lists all supported characters in a single place. You can open the Symbol dialog by following INSERT > Symbols > Symbol path in the Ribbon.

In the Symbol dialog, choose Greek and Coptic in Subset dropdown and scroll down to find the Greek Letters. Select the letter you need and click the Insert button.

delta symbol

Alternatively, you can use the character code. First, select Unicode (hex) from dropdown and type the corresponding code into the Character code box.

Letter Small Greek letter Code   Capital Greek letter Code   Letter Small Greek letter   Code Capital Greek letter Code
Alpha α 03B1   Α 391   Nu ν   03BE Ν 039D
Beta β 03B2   Β 392   Xi ξ   03BF Ξ 039E
Gamma γ 03B3   Γ 393   Omicron ο   03C0 Ο 039F
Delta δ 03B4   Δ 394   Pi π   03C1 Π 03A0
Epsilon ε 03B5   Ε 395   Rho ρ   03C2 Ρ 03A1
Zeta ζ 03B6   Ζ 396   Sigma σ   03C3 Σ 03A3
Eta η 03B7   Η 397   Tau τ   03C4 Τ 03A4
Theta θ 03B8   Θ 398   Upsilon υ   03C5 Υ 03A5
Iota ι 03B9   Ι 399   Phi φ   03C6 Φ 03A6
Kappa κ 03BA   Κ 039A   Chi χ   03C7 Χ 03A7
Lambda λ 03BB   Λ 039B   Psi ψ   03C8 Ψ 03A8
Mu μ 03BC   Μ 039C   Omega ω   03C9 Ω 03A9

 

Symbol Font

Entire list of Greek Letter symbols is available in a font named Symbol. All you need to do is to change a cell's font to Symbol and type the relevant character. For example, the capital "D" character returns the Δ symbol.

AutoCorrect

If you are frequently using one or a few Greek Letters in Excel, the AutoCorrect feature may become a life saver. The AutoCorrect is an essential Excel feature that corrects misspelled words automatically. An alternative use of this feature is its ability to insert symbols by typing keyboard friendly characters. For example, type (c) to get ©. You can add a new rule for a delta symbol as well.

  1. Open Options window from File tab in the Ribbon.
  2. Activate Proofing tab
  3. Click AutoCorrect Options button
  4. In the AutoCorrect dialog,
    1. enter a friendly text in Replace
    2. enter (copy/paste) a delta symbol in With
  5. Click Add and OK buttons to apply rule and return back to worksheet

We chose the string "delta" as a friendly name. From now on, whenever we type "delta", Excel inserts a delta symbol.