Entity References in HTML
Dated: 23 Aug, 2010 11:05:20 AM
Entity references are used in HTML to display characters that cannot be typed using keyboard or that has special meanings.
For example:
- We cannot type '<' in an html document as it denotes the starting of a tag. If we put '<' in out page's text, it will change the layout of our page.
- Likewise, © 'The copyright symbol' cannot be typed using the keyboard.
For these characters and symbols, we have entity references available at our disposal. We can use these entity references in out document and when the document is displayed on the browser, the entity references will be converted to the symbol it represents.
Entity references starts with & and end with ;
Below is a list of entity references that i had used in the past. You may find some symbols like α (alpha), β (beta) etc as not frequently used, but I think they can be useful in some sort of technical stuff.
| Symbol | Entity Reference | Description |
|---|
| ' |
' |
apostrophe (' does not work in IE, use ' instead) |
| " |
" |
double quotes (quotation mark) |
| & |
& |
ampersand |
| < |
< |
less than |
| > |
> |
greater than |
| |
|
single space (non-breaking space) |
| |
  |
thin space |
| ¡ |
¡ |
inverted exclamation mark |
| « |
« |
left pointing double less than (guillemet) |
| » |
» |
right pointing double greater than (guillemet) |
| ¢ |
¢ |
cent symbol |
| £ |
£ |
pound symbol |
| € |
€ |
euro symbol |
| ¥ |
¥ |
yen symbol |
| © |
© |
copyright symbol |
| ® |
® |
registered symbol |
| ™ |
™ |
trademark symbol |
| ° |
° |
degree symbol |
| ± |
± |
plus minus sign |
| ¶ |
¶ |
paragraph marker symbol |
| α |
α |
alpha symbol |
| β |
β |
beta symbol |
| γ |
γ |
gamma symbol |
| δ |
δ |
delta symbol |
| η |
η |
eta symbol |
| ζ |
ζ |
zeta symbol |
| θ |
θ |
theta symbol |
| λ |
λ |
lambda symbol |
| π |
π |
pi symbol |
| σ |
σ |
sigma symbol |
| µ |
µ |
micor sign |
| ≠ |
≠ |
not equal to symbol |
| ≤ |
≤ |
less than equal to symbol |
| ≥ |
≥ |
greater than equal to symbol |
| ∑ |
∑ |
summation sign |
| ∞ |
∞ |
infinity symbol |
| ≈ |
≈ |
asymptotic to (almost equal to) symbol |
| ≡ |
≡ |
equivalent to symbol |
| ← |
← |
left (single) arrow symbol |
| → |
→ |
right (single) arrow symbol |
| ↑ |
↑ |
up (single) arrow symbol |
| ↓ |
↓ |
down (single) arrow symbol |
| ⇐ |
⇐ |
left double arrow symbol |
| ⇒ |
⇒ |
right double arrow symbol |
| ⇑ |
⇑ |
up double arrow symbol |
| ⇓ |
⇓ |
down double arrow symbol |
| ↵ |
↵ |
carriage return symbol |
The list above is not exhaustive. For a complete list, search for
ISO 8859-1 symbols and characters.
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