Handy HTML Characters

Handy HTML Characters

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