Reassigned to ES

This is exactly the meaning of "Insert special character".
One doesn't want to have a character of code xyz but a character having a
specific appearence. In this case the combination code+font is needed.

closed

I would really like to reopen this issue, because the argument put forward for
invalidating it is itself not completely valid.
The Inserting > Special Characters routine seems to be only means for inserting
 typographical characters that are not "special" to any particular font, but
simply not available on the keyboard : the m-dash, the n-dash, the o-e and a-e
ligatures, etc. When I insert these characters, first off, it's a pain to even
have to think about the font and to navigate the long list to get the right one
-- WHICH IS THE ONE I'M USING. Then, when having changed the paragraph style
font (which happens very often), I have to think about going through the whole
document to find the little bits and pieces that were explicitly formated in a
particular font (typically, this involves, for each instance, selecting and
cutting the character(s) and surrounding characters, and then paste special as
unformatted -- this gets really laborious, and error prone).
The solution seems simple enough: include a "current font" option in the list of
fonts in the special character dialog box, or add an additional check box to
that effect. The effect would be exactly like paste special > unformatted text.
This can't be difficult to implement.
Alternately (and at a minimum), in deference to those rare times when one might
select a character that cannot be rendered in the current font, have the special
character dialog box preselect the same font as the text where cursor is
positioned and not insert any formating code with the character if the font
isn't changed.

I also think this issue should be reopened. The suggestions by rdr are very 
good.