Handy HTML Characters

• By Jess Brown | Jun 21, 2018

An HTML entity is a code you can use in your mark-up to insert special characters like ·, —, and &. HTML entities always start with & and end with ; like this: &. Every character has both an entity number and a corresponding entity name. As noted on w3schools.com, using the HTML entity name is helpful for memorizing the entities, but there may be some loss in browser support. To work around any potential lack of browser support, simply use the HTML entity number (&#entity-num;).

Here are the HTML entities we use most often and find very helpful as design elements and typographical control:

Design Elements
Character	Entity Name	Entity Number	Use
&	&	&	Ampersand. The symbolic representation of the word "and."
—	—	—	Em dash. Used to break up a thought in a sentence. Use Em dashes, never " - " or " -⁠- "
›	›	›	Useful to add to the end of a text link, and is better adapted to text, visually, than using the ">" symbol from you keyboard. Example: Learn more ›
•	•	•	Bullet
·	·	·	Using a dot in middle of text. Example: Innovative · Bold · Modern

Typography
Character	Entity Name	Entity Number	Use
­	­	­	Soft hyphen. Breaks word and adds a hyphen where placed only if necessary.
†	†	†	Footnotes, after use of asterisk (*)
‡	‡	‡	Footnotes, after use of single dagger (†)
§	§	§	Footnotes, after use of double dagger (‡)

Spaces
Character	Entity Name	Entity Number	Use
	 		Non-breaking space
	 	 	en space. Example: Menu Item Item
	 	 	em space. Example: Menu Item Item
		 	3-per-em space. Example: Menu Item Item
		 	4-per-em space. Example: Menu Item Item

Legal
Character	Entity Name	Entity Number	Use
®	®	&#174	Registered mark
™	™	™	Trademark
©	©	©	Copyright