Emoticons plays very special role in mails, chats and SMS. But its quite tedious to use mouse to send an emoticon. I discovered some keyboard shortcuts to type emoticons. When typed, these key combinations automatically get converted into pictures ... a nice feature of live mail and live messenger.

Use the below mentioned keys within brackets. For example if you type (A), it will get converted into an Angle Smile Emoticon(). For knowledge and ease of memory, I have also typed the name of emoticon.

Key Pic          Name of Emoticon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A         angle smile emoticon (Angle)

B         beer mug emoticon (Beer)

C     ©    copyright symbol (Copyright)

D         martini glass emoticon (Drink)

E         envelop emoticon (Envelop)

F         red rose emoticon (Flower)

G         gift with bow emoticon (Gift)

H         hot smily emoticon (Hot)

I         light bulb emoticon (Idea)

K         red lips emoticon (Kiss)

L         red heart emoticon (Love)

M         MSN Messanger icon emoticon (Messanger)

N         thumb down emoticon (No)

O         clock emoticon

P         camera emoticon (Picture)

r     ®    registered trademark (Registered)

S         sleeping half moon emoticon (Sleep)

T         telephone receiver emoticon (Telephone)

U         broken heart emoticon

W         wilted rose emoticon (Wilted)

X         girl emoticon (X-factor)

Y         thumbs up emoticon (Yes)

Z         boy emoticon

@         cat emoticon (AT)

#         sun emoticon (haSh)

%         handcuffs emoticon

^         birthday cake emoticon

&         dog emoticon

*         star emoticon

~         filmstrip emoticon

{         left hug emoticon

}         right hug emoticon

;     (Semi Colon + Closing Bracket) smile emoticon

:     (Colon + Closing Bracket) smile emoticon

?         ASL emoticon

How To Use

Type the key mentioned in the above table within brackets and live messenger and mail will automatically convert it into emoticon.

Example

If you want to type ASL emoticon (),

1. Press '(' key.
2. Then press '?' key.
3. And then press ')'.

As soon as you press ')' key, the three character sequence i.e. ( + ? + ) will be removed and emoticon will be displayed.