Browse HTML entities with a cleaner, faster interface
Explore symbols by category, jump into the most useful sets, and keep reserved characters easy to find.
Use search to narrow the cards below without leaving the page.
Keep reserved characters, symbols, and punctuation easy to discover when building content or documentation.
Open a category card to see every entity, then jump into the detail page for code examples and copy actions.
Cards are searchable instantly and work well on mobile, tablet, and desktop layouts.
Browse categories
Showing 17 of 17 categories.
Space Characters
Non-breaking spaces, en spaces, em spaces and other whitespace entities.
Special chars & HTML
Reserved characters for safe HTML output and markup handling.
Latin Letter
Letters and symbols commonly used in Latin alphabets.
Diacritical marks
Accent marks and modifiers used in multilingual text.
Greek alphabet - Capital letters
Uppercase Greek symbols used in math, science, and notation.
Greek alphabet - Small letters
Lowercase Greek symbols for formulas, constants, and text.
Math Symbol
Operators and symbols used in equations, formulas, and algebra.
Currency Symbol
Common currency marks for finance, pricing, and localization.
Quotation Marks
Curly quotes, guillemets, and other punctuation variants.
Punctuation Marks
Ellipsis, paragraph marks, and special punctuation symbols.
Superscript
Raised characters used for notes, ordinals, and notation.
Arrows
Directional symbols for flow, navigation, and mapping.
Symbols, Dingbats
Decorative and technical glyphs used across interfaces.
Number Forms
Roman numerals and special number forms for typography.
Letterlike Symbols
Mathematical letter symbols for number sets and constants.
Geometric Shapes
Squares, circles, diamonds and other shape symbols.
Miscellaneous Symbols
Stars, music notes, warning signs and cultural icons.
What are HTML entities?
An HTML entity is a short code that represents a character which would otherwise be difficult, ambiguous, or unsafe to type directly into HTML. An entity begins with an ampersand and ends with a semicolon, such as © for the copyright sign © or — for an em dash —.
Entities exist for two main reasons. First, some characters are reserved by the HTML syntax itself: the less-than sign starts a tag, and the ampersand starts an entity, so to display them literally you must write < and &. Second, many useful symbols — arrows, currency signs, mathematical operators, and typographic punctuation — are not on every keyboard, so entities provide a reliable way to include them.
Every entity can be written three ways. A named entity uses a memorable word like €, a decimal entity uses the Unicode code point in base ten, and a hexadecimal entity uses it in base sixteen. All three render the same character, so you can choose whichever is clearest for your source file.
Named, Decimal, and Hex Compared
| Character | Named | Decimal | Hex |
|---|---|---|---|
| & | & | & | & |
| < | < | < | < |
| © | © | © | © |
| |   |   | |
| — | — | — | — |
| → | → | → | → |
| € | € | € | € |
| … | … | … | … |
How to use this reference
- Find a category — use the search box or scan the cards below to narrow down symbols by theme, such as currency, arrows, or mathematical operators.
- Open a category — each card links to a detail page that lists every entity in that group with its named, decimal, hex, and CSS forms.
- Copy the code you need — use the copy action to grab the exact entity for your HTML, or the hex value for your CSS.
- Paste into your source — drop the entity into your HTML where the character should appear, and always keep the trailing semicolon.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an HTML entity?
An HTML entity is a coded reference to a character, written between an ampersand and a semicolon, such as &copy; for the copyright sign. It lets you include characters that are reserved by HTML syntax or hard to type.
Why do I need HTML entities?
Two reasons: some characters such as < and & have special meaning in HTML and must be escaped to display literally, and many symbols such as arrows, currency signs, and typographic punctuation are not available on every keyboard.
What is the difference between named, decimal, and hex entities?
All three represent the same character. A named entity uses a word such as &euro;, a decimal entity uses the Unicode code point in base ten such as &#8364;, and a hexadecimal entity uses it in base sixteen such as &#x20AC;. Named entities are the most readable, while numeric forms work even for characters that have no name.
Are HTML entities case-sensitive?
Named entities are case-sensitive: &Aacute; and &aacute; are different characters. Numeric entities are not case-sensitive, though the hexadecimal form conventionally uses uppercase letters for the digits A to F.
What is the difference between &nbsp; and a normal space?
A normal space can be collapsed or used as a line break by the browser. A non-breaking space (&nbsp;, U+00A0) prevents that collapsing and keeps two words or values on the same line, which is useful in dates, units, and brand names.
Does this reference list every HTML5 entity?
HTML5 defines more than two thousand named character references. This reference groups the ones you are most likely to need into clear categories, and every category page lists the complete set for that group with copy-ready codes.
How do I use these characters in CSS?
CSS does not understand HTML entities. Instead it uses a backslash escape followed by the code point in hexadecimal, such as content: "\20AC"; for the euro sign. Use the hex column on each category page for the value to place after the backslash.
Are HTML entities still needed in modern HTML?
Yes. Modern pages are served as UTF-8, so you can often paste a character directly, but the reserved characters &, <, and > must still be escaped, and entities remain a portable way to write symbols that are easy to mis-encode.