The CharacterMap plugin displays a dockable window listing all characters in a specified encoding, which can be selected using the combo box at the top of the window. For non-unicode encodings the table contains 256 characters that represent the entire character set. If the encoding is Unicode or UTF8 the table displays a 256-character page of the encoding. The page can be changed using the unicode blocks control.

To specify a custom encoding, type the name directly into the encoding combo box text field. Any custom encodings entered are stored in the combo box list to ease later selection.

Moving the cursor over the characters in the table updates the status line at the bottom of the window and (if enabled) displays the character under the mouse pointer at the top-right of the window.

Clicking on a character with Button 1 on the mouse (typically the left button) will cause the character to be inserted at the cursor position in the current buffer.

Pressing and holding button 3 on the mouse (typically the right button) will display an enlarged (depending on the size specified) version of the character overlayed at the current pointer position.

The characters in the table are rendered in the font style and size selected for the text area. The anti-alias and fractional font metrics options are also honoured.