These are made up of reserved characters in HTML that have special meaning when used in HTML documents. For example, HTML tags include less than and greater than characters as part of the tag. To display the same, you would need to use an HTML Entity to get the browser to display these tags as intended.
HTML processors must support the following five special characters listed in the table that follows.
| Symbol | Description | Entity Name | Number Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| “ | quotation mark | " | " |
| ‘ | apostrophe | ' | ' |
| & | ampersand | & | & |
| < | less-than | < | < |
| > | greater-than | > | > |
Below is the complete list of special characters from HTML 4.0. These can be used to appear in your document by either using the numerical codes or the entity names.
ISO 8859-1 Symbol Entities
| Symbol | Description | Entity Name | Number Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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
| Symbol | Description | Entity Name | Number Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
Other HTML Entities
| Symbol | Description | Entity Name | Number Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| Π| capital ligature OE | Π| Π|
| 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 | € | € |
