Special Characters


Overview

In HTML, special characters or “entities” require special attention. Symbols, such as the less than symbol (<) and the greater than symbol (>), help define tags and therefore cannot be used in the context of normal text without special treatment. Others, such as the copyright symbol (©) and the trade mark symbol (™) cannot be typed on a keyboard and require special treatment in order to be displayed. This tutorial will illustrate how to treat these special characters.

Tutorial

  1. Understanding “Entities”

    An “entity” is simply a special character that has been coded to display correctly in HTML.

  2. Entity Structure

    All HTML “entities” begin with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;). The symbol’s marker is then placed in between these characters.

  1. Which Character would you like? 
    

&	Ampersand		&amp;

<	Less Than		&lt;

>	Greater Than	&gt;

©	Copyright		&copy;

™	Trademark		&trade;

® 	Registered TM	&reg;
  1. The List Goes On…

    There are literally hundreds of these special characters ranging from currency and mathematical symbols to special language characters. Each one requires a different marker in the middle, but their use and structure always remains the same.

 

Additional Resources

For a complete list of special characters, please visit
http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/Special_Characters

 

About the Author

Travis Atwood has been an avid user of the web for many years and has been involved with web design for nearly 3 weeks. His expertise in special characters is founded on the principle that his Mom always said he was special. He can be reached via email at travis.atwood@gmail.com