Quick Greek keyboard characters?

I am currently writing some pharmacology text on my laptop and need to use the Greek characters "α" (alpha) and "β" (beta) alot. Is there some quick way of assigning these characters to single keys on the keyboard as I am finding using the character map or the alt key and numeric code pretty laborious?
Thanks in advance.

 

If you're using Microsoft Word:

1. In Word, click "Insert" then click "Symbol "
2. Find the symbol or character you want and click on it once to select it
3. Click the "Shortcut Key" button
4. In the "Press new shortcut key" box, type the key combination you want to use.
5. Click the "Assign" button

I copied the above from Word 2000's help files, using "character" as the search term on the Index tab. I edited it for clarity. If you're using another version of MS Word, see if it has different instructions in its help files.

 

mark.reeves--If you do not have Word, I suppose you could create a α and β inside a wordpad document, save as a Rich Text Format file, create a shortcut to the .rtf file in an easily accessible place (like Quick Launch) and then open and copy/paste as needed. Or just leave the Wordpad or .rtf file open, but minimized, on your Taskbar.
α β
You will need Wordviewer to open the .rtf file.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

Normally you cannot change the function of a single key on your keyboard, but there may be something here
http://www.softplatz.com/software/change-keyboard-shortcuts/

 

Thankyou

Thanks Miz; I am using Word so your suggestion works really well. I've assigned Alt-1 to alpha and Alt-2 to beta.
Thanks again for your advice.
Kind regards.
Mark R.