HTML Special Characters - Special Entities
Want to add copyright symbol ©, trademark ™, or registered symbol ® to your website?
Here are some of the most commonly used HTML special characters/ special entities.
Roughly, special entities / special characters are characters that you may not be able to type them directly from the keyboard and make them display properly on your website. Copryright symbol ©, trademark symbol ™, registered mark ® or accented letters like á and ñ are examples of special characters.
An entity begins with an ampersand (&) and ends with a semicolon (;). For example, the following is an entity for the copyright symbol: © which will be displayed as © in your browser.
Unless styled specifically in CSS, the trademark symbol ™ is automatically in the superscript position. The registered mark and copyright symbol are not. To make it in the superscript position, you just need to use the pair of tags <sup></sup>. To demonstrate the difference, here’s how the normal registered sign looks ®, and here’s how the registered sign in superscript looks ®. Add some CSS style to make it even better if you want.
To create the special character/entity in the third column [the DISPLAY column], just copy the code in the last column [the HTML column] and paste it to the code of your html file.
Most common special characters — general: copryright, registered, trademark…
| DESCRIPTION | NAME | DISPLAY | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|
| copyright sign | copy | © | © |
| trade mark sign | trade | ™ | ™ |
| registered sign = registered trade mark sign | reg | ® | ® |
| ampersand | amp | & | & |
| no-break space = non-breaking space | nbsp | | |
| degree sign | deg | ° | ° |
| left-pointing double angle quotation mark = left pointing guillemet | laquo | « | « |
| right-pointing double angle quotation mark = right pointing guillemet | raquo | » | » |
| greater-than sign | gt | > | > |
| less-than sign | lt | < | < |
| bullet = black small circle | bull | • | • |
| en dash | ndash | – | – |
| em dash | mdash | — | — |
Most common special characters — currencies: cent, yen, euro….
| DESCRIPTION | NAME | DISPLAY | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|
| cent sign | cent | ¢ | ¢ |
| euro sign | euro | € | € |
| pound sign | pound | £ | £ |
| yen sign = yuan sign | yen | ¥ | ¥ |
Most common special characters — math-related: great than, less than…
| DESCRIPTION | NAME | DISPLAY | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|
| greater-than sign | gt | > | > |
| less-than sign | lt | < | < |
| greater-than or equal to | ge | ≥ | ≥ |
| less-than or equal to | le | ≤ | ≤ |
| almost equal to = asymptotic to | asymp | ≈ | ≈ |
| vulgar fraction one half = fraction one half | frac12 | ½ | ½ |
| vulgar fraction one quarter = fraction one quarter | frac14 | ¼ | ¼ |
| vulgar fraction three quarters = fraction three quarters | frac34 | ¾ | ¾ |
| superscript one = superscript digit one | sup1 | ¹ | ¹ |
| superscript three = superscript digit three = cubed | sup3 | ³ | ³ |
| superscript two = superscript digit two = squared | sup2 | ² | ² |
| division sign | divide | ÷ | ÷ |
| multiplication sign | times | × | × |
| minus sign | minus | − | − |
| plus-minus sign = plus-or-minus sign | plusmn | ± | ± |
| identical to | equiv | ≡ | ≡ |
| not equal to | ne | ≠ | ≠ |
| infinity | infin | ∞ | ∞ |
| square root = radical sign | radic | √ | √ |
| degree sign | deg | ° | ° |
| per mille sign | permil | ‰ | ‰ |
| micro sign | micro | µ | µ |
| for all | forall | ∀ | ∀ |
| element of | isin | ∈ | ∈ |
| greek small letter alpha | alpha | α | α |
| greek small letter beta | beta | β | β |
| greek small letter chi | chi | χ | χ |
| greek small letter delta | delta | δ | δ |
| greek small letter epsilon | epsilon | ε | ε |
| greek small letter eta | eta | η | η |
| greek small letter final sigma | sigmaf | ς | ς |
| greek small letter gamma | gamma | γ | γ |
| greek small letter iota | iota | ι | ι |
| greek small letter kappa | kappa | κ | κ |
| greek small letter lambda | lambda | λ | λ |
| greek small letter mu | mu | μ | μ |
| greek small letter nu | nu | ν | ν |
| greek small letter omega | omega | ω | ω |
| greek small letter omicron | omicron | ο | ο |
| greek small letter phi | phi | φ | φ |
| greek small letter pi | pi | π | π |
| greek small letter psi | psi | ψ | ψ |
| greek small letter rho | rho | ρ | ρ |
| greek small letter sigma | sigma | σ | σ |
Most common special characters — arrows, cards…
| DESCRIPTION | NAME | DISPLAY | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|
| left right arrow | harr | ↔ | ↔ |
| left right double arrow | hArr | ⇔ | ⇔ |
| upwards arrow | uarr | ↑ | ↑ |
| downwards arrow | darr | ↓ | ↓ |
| leftwards arrow | larr | ← | ← |
| rightwards arrow | rarr | → | → |
| upwards double arrow | uArr | ⇑ | ⇑ |
| downwards double arrow | dArr | ⇓ | ⇓ |
| leftwards double arrow | lArr | ⇐ | ⇐ |
| rightwards double arrow | rArr | ⇒ | ⇒ |
| downwards arrow with corner leftwards = carriage return | crarr | ↵ | ↵ |
| black club suit = shamrock | clubs | ♣ | ♣ |
| black diamond suit | diams | ♦ | ♦ |
| black heart suit = valentine | hearts | ♥ | ♥ |
| black spade suit | spades | ♠ | ♠ |
2 Responses to 'HTML Special Characters - Special Entities'
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28 Jan 09 at 12:21 am
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Your site displays incorrectly in Mozilla, but content excellent! Thank you for your wise words.
5 Feb 09 at 11:51 pm
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Great! Thank you very much!
I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Sincerely, Your Reader