Os Debian Wheezy
DE Gnome3
I'm doing an online math course & sometimes whenI click on page to add the symbol it greys out, not allowing slection.If I hover over the symbol, it shows ctrl+Shift+ And the rest of the key input is missing.

I have however by accident, found out how to enter 1 character which was the symbol for exponent. While the popup said to use Ctrl+ Shift+unknown-key, the keystroke was Shift+Caps+Right-Arrow.

Is there a math wiz here who can lead me down the right path?

It would depend on the program used to enter Maths equations etc.

The industry standard, for publication purposes, is LaTeX and there are many front-ends to assist in its input.

All I can think of is the "compose key" which is equivalent to using Ctrl+Alt and entering a number under Windows. On my system the key is AltGr and pressing shift then AltGR alows me to "compose" letters with accents and the like by doing things like entering the letter and an apostrophe. Is it, perhaps, like that?

Yuck.

I refer you to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX

I'm not sure of the program in use but the course is a Pearsons MyMathLab, when I get home later on tonight I'll post a screenshot.

If you've paid for the course, ask whoever runs it, or go to Pearsons
http://www.pearsonmylabandmastering....ica/mymathlab/

As I understand it, the program should provide a palate for maths characters, or else you could use the Gnome character map.

Since this is an on-line teaching course accessed via a web-browser, I suspect that LaTeX is irrelevant.

The palate is there certain functions work now & when going to the next question, it may or may not work. I have found that if I hover over 1 of the symbols it gives a key combination which I can enter, but they key combi.ations are not the exact combinations in linux.
Like I was saying, the key combination for the exponent or power sign according to the applet said Ctrl+Shift+unknownkey, while my machine is setup to use Shift+Caps-Lock+Right-Arrow. So obviously it is presently mapped already, I just can't find it. Ireally just don't know where to look in my file manager to either copy or print out the key combinations.
Also I haven't tried it but for the pi sign it says the combination is /pi.
Also I don't believe they will be of much assistanc since they say that the supported OS IS Mac or Wins.
However I am at the present time getting by fairly well, as the only 2 problems I have incurred is selecting the exponent(power sign), which I know the key combination for & selecting items from drop down menu offering multiple choice answers, which I found that if I found that I can use up or down arrows to highlight the desired answer then press Enter to make it so.

@DavidMcCann I reread your post & beieve that you have put me on the right path with the gnome character map. I went to gnome character map manual here
https://help.gnome.org/users/gucharm...gucharmap.html & I eive that was what I was looking for.
I'll check it out when on my computer tonight. I've got to get a bigger phone.