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HTML Character Entities

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Some characters like the < character, have a special meaning in HTML, and therefore cannot be used in the text.

To display a less than sign (<) in HTML, we have to use a character entity.

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Character Entities

Some characters have a special meaning in HTML, like the less than sign (<) that defines the start of an HTML tag. If we want the browser to actually display these characters we must insert character entities in the HTML source.

A character entity has three parts: an ampersand (&), an entity name or a # and an entity number, and finally a semicolon (;).

To display a less than sign in an HTML document we must write: &lt; or &#60;

The advantage of using a name instead of a number is that a name is easier to remember. The disadvantage is that not all browsers support the newest entity names, while the support for entity numbers is very good in almost all browsers.

Note that the entities are case sensitive. 

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Non-breaking Space

The most common character entity in HTML is the non-breaking space.

Normally HTML will truncate spaces in your text. If you write 10 spaces in your text HTML will remove 9 of them. To add spaces to your text, use the &nbsp; character entity.

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The Most Common Character Entities:

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
	non-breaking space	 	 
<	less than	&lt;	&#60;
>	greater than	&gt;	&#62;
&	ampersand	&amp;	&#38;
"	quotation mark	&quot;	&#34;
'	apostrophe	&apos; (does not work in IE)	&#39;

Some Other Commonly Used Character Entities:

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
¢	cent	¢	¢
£	pound	£	£
¥	yen	¥	¥
§	section	§	§
©	copyright	©	©
®	registered trademark	®	®
×	multiplication	×	×
÷	division	÷	÷

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HTML 4.01 Entities Reference

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HTML 4.01 supports the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) character set.

The lower part of ISO-8859-1 (codes from 0-127) is the original 7-BIT ASCII standard. Most of these characters can be used without a character reference.

The higher part of ISO-8859-1 (codes from 160-255) can all be used using character entity names.

Note that the entity names are case sensitive.

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ASCII Entities with new Entity Names

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
"	quotation mark	"	"
'	apostrophe	' (does not work in IE)	'
&	ampersand	&	&
<	less-than	&lt;	&#60;
>	greater-than	&gt;	&#62;

ISO 8859-1 Symbol Entities

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
	non-breaking space	 	 
¡	inverted exclamation mark	¡	¡
¤	currency	¤	¤
¢	cent	¢	¢
£	pound	£	£
¥	yen	¥	¥
¦	broken vertical bar	¦	¦
§	section	§	§
¨	spacing diaeresis	¨	¨
©	copyright	©	©
ª	feminine ordinal indicator	ª	ª
«	angle quotation mark (left)	«	«
¬	negation	¬	¬
­	soft hyphen	­	­
®	registered trademark	®	®
™	trademark	™	™
¯	spacing macron	¯	¯
°	degree	°	°
±	plus-or-minus	±	±
²	superscript 2	²	²
³	superscript 3	³	³
´	spacing acute	´	´
µ	micro	µ	µ
¶	paragraph	¶	¶
•	middle dot	·	·
¸	spacing cedilla	¸	¸
¹	superscript 1	¹	¹
º	masculine ordinal indicator	º	º
»	angle quotation mark (right)	»	»
¼	fraction 1/4	¼	¼
½	fraction 1/2	½	½
¾	fraction 3/4	¾	¾
¿	inverted question mark	¿	¿
×	multiplication	×	×
÷	division	÷	÷

ISO 8859-1 Character Entities

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
À	capital a, grave accent	À	À
Á	capital a, acute accent	Á	Á
Â	capital a, circumflex accent	Â	Â
Ã	capital a, tilde	Ã	Ã
Ä	capital a, umlaut mark	Ä	Ä
Å	capital a, ring	Å	Å
Æ	capital ae	Æ	Æ
Ç	capital c, cedilla	Ç	Ç
È	capital e, grave accent	È	È
É	capital e, acute accent	É	É
Ê	capital e, circumflex accent	Ê	Ê
Ë	capital e, umlaut mark	Ë	Ë
Ì	capital i, grave accent	Ì	Ì
Í	capital i, acute accent	Í	Í
Î	capital i, circumflex accent	Î	Î
Ï	capital i, umlaut mark	Ï	Ï
Ð	capital eth, Icelandic	Ð	Ð
Ñ	capital n, tilde	Ñ	Ñ
Ò	capital o, grave accent	Ò	Ò
Ó	capital o, acute accent	Ó	Ó
Ô	capital o, circumflex accent	Ô	Ô
Õ	capital o, tilde	Õ	Õ
Ö	capital o, umlaut mark	Ö	Ö
Ø	capital o, slash	Ø	Ø
Ù	capital u, grave accent	Ù	Ù
Ú	capital u, acute accent	Ú	Ú
Û	capital u, circumflex accent	Û	Û
Ü	capital u, umlaut mark	Ü	Ü
Ý	capital y, acute accent	Ý	Ý
Þ	capital THORN, Icelandic	Þ	Þ
ß	small sharp s, German	ß	ß
à	small a, grave accent	à	à
á	small a, acute accent	á	á
â	small a, circumflex accent	â	â
ã	small a, tilde	ã	ã
ä	small a, umlaut mark	ä	ä
å	small a, ring	å	å
æ	small ae	æ	æ
ç	small c, cedilla	ç	ç
è	small e, grave accent	è	è
é	small e, acute accent	é	é
ê	small e, circumflex accent	ê	ê
ë	small e, umlaut mark	ë	ë
ì	small i, grave accent	ì	ì
í	small i, acute accent	í	í
î	small i, circumflex accent	î	î
ï	small i, umlaut mark	ï	ï
ð	small eth, Icelandic	ð	ð
ñ	small n, tilde	ñ	ñ
ò	small o, grave accent	ò	ò
ó	small o, acute accent	ó	ó
ô	small o, circumflex accent	ô	ô
õ	small o, tilde	õ	õ
ö	small o, umlaut mark	ö	ö
ø	small o, slash	ø	ø
ù	small u, grave accent	ù	ù
ú	small u, acute accent	ú	ú
û	small u, circumflex accent	û	û
ü	small u, umlaut mark	ü	ü
ý	small y, acute accent	ý	ý
þ	small thorn, Icelandic	þ	þ
ÿ	small y, umlaut mark	ÿ	ÿ

Some Other Entities supported by HTML

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
Œ	capital ligature OE	Œ	Œ
œ	small ligature oe	œ	œ
Š	capital S with caron	Š	Š
š	small S with caron	š	š
Ÿ	capital Y with diaeres	Ÿ	Ÿ
ˆ	modifier letter circumflex accent	ˆ	ˆ
˜	small tilde	˜	˜
	en space	 	 
	em space	 	 
	thin space	 	 
‌	zero width non-joiner	‌	‌
‍	zero width joiner	‍	‍
‎	left-to-right mark	‎	‎
‏	right-to-left mark	‏	‏
–	en dash	–	–
—	em dash	—	—
‘	left single quotation mark	‘	‘
’	right single quotation mark	’	’
‚	single low-9 quotation mark	‚	‚
“	left double quotation mark	“	“
”	right double quotation mark	”	”
„	double low-9 quotation mark	„	„
†	dagger	†	†
‡	double dagger	‡	‡
…	horizontal ellipsis	…	…
‰	per mille	‰	‰
‹	single left-pointing angle quotation	‹	‹
›	single right-pointing angle quotation	›	›
€	euro	€	€

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