What is mcg?

[Newone]

I know mg stands for miligrams, but what does mcg stand for?

[Guest]

An improper symbol for microgram used by the US pharmaceutical industry and medical profession. Symbol should be µg.

[Guest]

Yes, it's improper... But it's commonly used because µ is not a standard character available on typical US keyboards. It is an "ALT Code", which means you can type it by pressing and holding the ALT key while typing 0181 on the number pad, as it will not work on the number bar above the letter keys.

When you release the ALT key after typing those numbers, the µ symbol will appear in your document. For a complete list of ALT Codes, search for "ALT Codes" on google. Be aware though that not all of the codes will display US characters, so you may see a small square in place of some of the symbols.

[sabina]

I believe it's available but must be accessed with the use of ANSII codes (windows) similar to the old ASCII codes for old DOS operating systems. Don't know the code but if you want to try here's an example: hold ALT and from the keypad and type a few digits then release ALT, see what happens.