You win the send button contest!!
Create a note as you have and then use Properties to edit it. Select the button Labeled "Editor" and you should see there are extra characters that the Properties editor doesn't show. At least in my installation 'Editor" brings up Notepad.
123456 looks like {0: 1 2 3 4 5 6 }
Ctrl-A is an alternate character set introducer and I think Crtl-B terminates it. So try Crtl-A then V then Ctrl-B.