How to Use HTML's Special Characters

You'll find characters like < and @ on your keyboard, but if you're using them as part of your text, it's a better idea to use the &-character, so that someone ELSE's browser doesn't mistake yours for special characters and mess up your beautiful display. (Always remember to start each special character with an ampersand and end it with a semi-colon!)

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

<

&lt;

left bracket

>

&gt;

right bracket

&

&amp;

ampersand

@

&#64;

at-sign

#

&#35;

pound-sign

"

&quot;

quotation mark

&nbsp;

non-breaking space

    
The non-breaking space is great for what printers used to call "widows" — when one, lonely, tiny word like "it" is the last word of the paragraph and the only word on its line. The non-breaking space is also good for ellipses (". . .") and phrases you'd like to keep together. I had to use non-breaking spaces to make Squidoo display this paragraph correctly!

Ever wonder how to display words like fiancée or São Paolo? Wonder no more! For each variation, only one example is given, like "é" (&eacute;) — if you want to use a different letter (like á or É), it will usually (but not always) work if you just substitute the letter you want for the letter in the example. (Because Squidoo does NOT support CSS, each line of the table takes up about 700 characters!)

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

é

&eacute;

acute accent — café, más macho

à

&agrave;

grave accent — pie à la mode, après-ski

ç

&ccedil;

cedilla — façade, garçon

ë

&euml;

umlaut — Goëthe, naïveté, Chloë

ñ

&ntilde;

tilde — mañana, señorita, São Tomé and Principe

ê

&ecirc;

circumflex — Côte D'Azur, arête

æ

&aelig;

ligatured A and E — æsthetic, encyclopædia

œ

&#339;

ligatured O and E — œnology

ə

&#601;

schwa, as in " 'Pencil' is pronounced 'PEN-səl.' "

ø

&oslash;

slashed O, as in "The Wørd" (mostly Scandinavian)

å

&aring;

ringed letters, as in "Riksmål" (mostly Scandinavian)

Squidoo supports the "easy" version for only one form of "pretty punctuation": the em-dash. The em-dash is a dash the width of a capital M (—), and the en-dash is a dash the width of a capital N (–). The en-dash is usually used by editors who are persnickety enough to remember usages like "His is a Civil War era–based economics." Beware! — Squidoo's interpretation of "&ndash;" (-) is indistinguishable from a hyphen.

Curly quotes are another matter. They aren't really worth the effort for sans-serif type faces, but for serif faces, they can be snazzy. Alas, Squidoo does NOT support the easy way to display these characters (for example, &lsquo;).

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

—

&mdash;

em-dash

–

&#8211;

en-dash

‘

&#8216;

left single quo

’

&#8217;

right single quo

“

&#8220;

left double quote (&ldquo;)

”

&#8221;

right double quo

•

&#8226;

bullet

…

&#8230;

horizontal ellipsis

‹

&#8249;

left angle quo

›

&#8250;

right angle quo

«

&laquo;

left double angle quo

»

&raquo;

right double angle quo

¡

&iexcl;

upside-down exclamation mark

¿

&iquest;

upside-down question mark

    
There are two more characters you may find useful:

The "soft" hyphen (&shy;) is invisible UNLESS it is needed. For example, I put two into "floc­ci­naucinihilipilification" (originally, I used seven), and yet you see only one here. If you're a ses­qui­pedalian sort of writer (yes, I used them again!), you may find the soft hyphen handy for making your work display more attractively.

The non-breaking hyphen (&#8209;) is just the opposite. Suppose you want "anti‑antidisestablishmentarianism" or some similar long phrase never to be broken at the end of a line, no matter what. Use the non-breaking hyphen.

This first section features the more basic math and science symbols people use often. If you see a vertical bar instead of the character, it is supported in Firefox but not in Internet Explorer.

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

×

&times;

times sign, as in "2 × 2 = 4."

·

&middot;

middle dot, as in "2 · 2 = 4."

∗

&#8727;

middle asterisk, as in "2 ∗ 2 = 4."

÷

&divide;

division sign, as in "4 ÷ 2 = 2."

±

&plusmn;

plus-or-minus sign, as in "The specified range is 5.7 ± 0.2."

√

&#8730;

square root

²

&sup2;

superscript 2, as in "2² × 2² = 16."

³

&sup3;

superscript 3, as in "2³ × 2³ = 64."

¼

&frac14;

one-fourth, as in "¼ + ¼ = ½."

½

&frac12;

one-half, as in "2½ + 2½ = 5."

¾

&frac34;

three-fourths, as in "2¾ + 2¾ = 5½."

< | >

&lt; | &gt;

less-than and greater-than signs

∞

&#8734;

infinity sign

°

&deg;

degree sign, as in "It's 74° F. outside right now."

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

ƒ

&#402;

function sign

¦

&#166;

broken bar

¬

&#172;

not sign

µ

&#181;

micro sign

‰

&#8240;

per mille sign

←

&#8592;

leftwards arrow

→

&#8594;

rightwards arrow

↑

&#8593;

upwards arrow

↓

&#8595;

downwards arrow

↔

&#8596;

left-right arrow

↵

&#8629;

downwards arrow with corner leftwards

⇐

&#8656;

leftwards double arrow

⇒

&#8658;

rightwards double arrow

⇑

&#8657;

upwards double arrow

⇓

&#8659;

downwards double arrow

⇔

&#8660;

left-right double arrow

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

′

&#8242;

prime minutes

″

&#8243;

double prime (I am 5′6&#8243.)

∀

&#8704;

for all

∂

&#8706;

partial differential

∝

&#8733;

proportional to

∠

&#8736;

angle

∼

&#8764;

tilde operator

∫

&#8747;

integral

≅

&#8773;

approximately equal to

≈

&#8776;

almost equal to

≠

&#8800;

not equal to

≡

&#8801;

identical to

≤

&#8804;

less than or equal to

≥

&#8805;

greater than or equal to

⊕

&#8853;

circled plus

⊗

&#8855;

circled times

Some of these are probably also math / science symbols.

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

∃

&#8707;

there exists

∅

&#8709;

empty set

∇

&#8711;

nabla

∈

&#8712;

element of

∉

&#8713;

not an element of

∏

&#8719;

n-ary product

∑

&#8721;

n-ary summation

∧

&#8743;

logical and

∨

&#8744;

logical or

∩

&#8745;

intersection

∪

&#8746;

union

∫

&#8747;

integral

∴

&#8756;

therefore

⊂

&#8834;

subset of

⊃

&#8835;

superset of

⊆

&#8838;

subset of or equal to

⊇

&#8839;

superset of or equal to

Squidoo does not support the easy way to display Greek characters at this writing (if anything changes, this will look like an Omega: &Omega;). And even with this minimal formatting, I could only squeeze half the alphabet into 10,000 characters! — and one way I did it was by simply using the English letter wherever I could. If you need the HTML, you can figure it out.

UC Letter

HTML

LC Letter

HTML

Name

A

A

α

&#945;

Alpha (&alpha;)

B

B

β

&#946;

Beta (&beta;)

Γ

&#915;

γ

&#947;

Gamma (&gamma;)

Δ

&#916;

δ

&#948;

Delta (&delta;)

Ε

&#917;

ε

&#949;

Epsilon (&epsilon;)

Z

Z

ζ

&#950;

Zeta (&Zeta; / &zeta;)

H

H

η

&#951;

Eta (&Eta; / &eta;)

Θ

&#920;

θ

&#952;

Theta (&theta;)

I

I

ι

&#953;

Iota (&Iota; / &iota;)

K

K

κ

&#954;

Kappa (&kappa;)

Λ

&#923;

λ

&#955;

Lambda (&lambda;)

M

M

μ

&#956;

Mu (&Mu; / &mu;)

UC Letter

HTML

LC Letter

HTML

Name

N

N

ν

&#957;

Nu (&nu;)

Ξ

&#926;

ξ

&#958;

Xi (&xi;)

O

O

o

o

Omicron (&omicron;)

Π

&#928;

π

&#960;

Pi (&pi;)

P

P

ρ

&#961;

Rho (&Rho; / &rho;)

Σ

&#931;

σ

&#963;

Sigma (&sigma;)

T

T

τ

&#964;

Tau (&Tau; / &tau;)

Y

Y

υ

&#965;

Upsilon (&upsilon;)

Φ

&#934;

φ

&#966;

Phi (&Phi; &phi;)

X

X

χ

&#967;

Chi (&Chi; / &chi;)

Ψ

&#936;

ψ

&#968;

Psi (&Psi; / &psi;)

Ω

&#937;

ω

&#969;

Omega (&omega;)

HTML provides a number of ways to space text. One of these, the non-breaking space, we have already seen (&nbsp;). The non-breaking space may be the one &-character I use most often. It's particularly good as a quick-and-dirty way to fake an indent, like:
      Using three NBSPs followed by three ordinary spaces after a <br /> is a great way to fake a new single-spaced paragraph.

Another character, the thinspace, is also useful when you want a little bit of space between characters, but less than a whole space. I particularly like it when I'm displaying quotes within quotes. For example, in a 2009 episode of How I Met Your Mother, Marshall made me laugh like crazy with a great imitation of André the Giant in The Princess Bride  in a throw-away line. In André's voice, Marshall said, “ ‘Anybody want a peanut?’ ” (Or, WITHOUT the thinspaces,
“‘Anybody want a peanut?’”) … well, I guess you had to be there. The code for the thinspace is &#8201;. (By the way, I used a thinspace to make "Bride in" display correctly!)

HTML also provides two "fat" spaces, the em-space (&#8195;) and the en-space (&#8194;). Check out the following examples:

This is a sample of normal spacing using the spacebar.
This is a sample of spacing using the em-space (&#8195;).
This is a sample of normal spacing using the spacebar.
This is a sample of spacing using the en-space (&#8194;).

Some languages, like Greek and Hebrew, have two different versions of a letter, depending on its position in the word. If you are familiar with the evolution of English, you know that English USED to have two versions of the letter S, "s" for the end of the word, and a letter that looked a lot like a function sign for the middle of the word. This resulted in legitimate spellings like, "The town had two poƒt offices." Invariably over time, the "s" that looked like ƒ evolved into an "f."

HTML provides two "spaces" for users of languages like Hebrew and Greek, the zero-width non-joiner (&#8204;) and the zero-width joiner (&#8205;). If your browser automatically converts whatever you type and you want to FORCE it to display "post offices," you would use the zero-width non-joiner ("pos&#8204;t offices"). If you want to FORCE your browser to display "poft officef.", you would use the zero-width joiner ("post offices&#8205;."). … or you would learn a less exasperating language!

Finally, HTML provides two invisible spaces for users of Unicode, the left-to-right mark (&#8206;) and the right-to-left mark (&#8207;). Since I have no idea under what circumstances these spaces are supposed to be used, you'll have to settle for the coding.

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

¢

&cent;

cent sign, as in "25¢."

£

&pound;

British pound sign, as in "£1.00 is worth about $1.40."

¥

&yen;

Japanese yen sign, as in "¥10.21 is worth about $1.00."

€

&#8364;

Euro sign, as in "€13.13 is about the same as $10.00."

§

&sect;

section sign, beloved by attorneys

©

&copy;

copyright sign

™

&#8482;

trademark sign (for non-Squidoo pages, &trade;)

®

&reg;

registered sign

¶

&para;

new-paragraph sign, beloved by editors and proofreaders

†

&#8224;

dagger sign (mainly for footnotes)

‡

&#8225;

double dagger sign (mainly for footnotes)

♠

&#9824;

spades symbol; the other black suit is clubs (♣ / &#9827;)

♥

&#9829;

hearts symbol; the other red suit is diamonds (♦ / &#9830;)

I'm including these characters for completeness. I have no idea under what circumstances you might want them — well, the lozenge might make a cool do-it-yourself bullet, if you're feeling masochistic. Once again, if you see a vertical bar where the special character ought to be, it is supported in Firefox but not in Internet Explorer.

Char.

HTML Code

Name / Meaning

¤

&#164;

currency sign

ϖ

&#982;

Greek symbol for pi

℘

&#8472;

ugly script capital P

ℑ

&#8465;

blackletter capital I

ℜ

&#8476;

blackletter capital R

ℵ

&#8501;

Hebrew alef

◊

&#9674;

lozenge

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