Character Entities

HTML files encode certain characters to avoid confusion with reserved characters that have special meaning to browsers. In general, a character that is to be encoded is encoded as an ampersand (&) followed by a pound (#) followed by the decimall representation of the ascii code for the character followed by the semicolon (;). Thus

Some characters can be encoded with their names. For example, the less-than character, <, may be encoded as < to avoid confusion with the unencoded <, which would signal the beginning of an HTML tag. The > character is encoded as > The quote character is coded as "

Here is a table of the most common Character Entities as printed in HTML & XHTML from O'Reilly:

Numeric Entity	Named Entity	Symbol	Description
			Horizontal tab
			Line feed
			Carriage return
			Space
!		!	Exclamation point
"	"	"	Quotation mark
#		#	Hash mark
$		$	Dollar sign
%		%	Percent sign
&	&	&	Ampersand
'		'	Apostrophe
(		(	Left parenthesis
)		)	Right parenthesis
*		*	Asterisk
+		+	Plus sign
,		,	Comma
-		-	Hyphen
.		.	Period
/		/	Slash
0 - 9		0-9	Digits 0-9
:		:	Colon
;		;	Semicolon
<	<	<	Less than
=		=	Equals sign
>	>	>	Greater than
?		?	Question mark
@		@	Commercial at sign
A - Z		A-Z	Letters A-Z
[		[	Left square bracket
\		\	Backslash
]		]	Right square bracket
^		^	Caret
_		_	Underscore
`		`	Grave accent
a - z		a-z	Letters a-z
{		{	Left curly brace
\|		\|	Vertical bar
}		}	Right curly brace
~		~	Tilde
		,	Low left single quote
			Florin
		,,	Low left double quote
		...	Ellipsis
			Dagger
			Double dagger
		^	Circumflex
			Permil
			Capital S, caron
		<	Less than sign
			Capital OE ligature
			Capital Z, caron
		`	Left single quote
		'	Right single quote
		"	Left double quote
		"	Right double quote
			Bullet
		-	En dash
		--	Em dash
		~	Tilde
			Trademark
			Small s, caron
		>	Greater than sign
			Small oe ligature
			Small z, caron
			Capital Y, umlaut
			Nonbreaking space
¡	¡	¡	Inverted exclamation point
¢	¢	¢	Cent sign
£	£	£	Pound sign
¤	¤	¤	General currency sign
¥	¥	¥	Yen sign
¦	¦		Broken vertical bar
§	§	§	Section sign
¨	¨		Umlaut
©	©	©	Copyright
ª	ª	ª	Feminine ordinal
«	«	«	Left angle quote
¬	¬	¬	Not sign
		-	Soft hyphen
®	®	®	Registered trademark
¯	¯	¯	Macron accent
°	°		Degree sign
±	±		Plus or minus
²	²	²	Superscript 2
³	³	³	Superscript 3
´	´	´	Acute accent
µ	µ		Micro sign (Greek mu)
¶	¶	¶	Paragraph sign
·	·	·	Middle dot
¸	¸		Cedilla
¹	¹	¹	Superscript 1
º	º		Masculine ordinal
»	»	»	Right angle quote
¼	¼	¹/₄	Fraction one-fourth
½	½	¹/₂	Fraction one-half
¾	¾	³/₄	Fraction three-fourths
¿	¿		Capital eth, Icelandic
Ñ	Ñ	Ñ	Capital N, tilde
Ò	Ò	Ò	Capital O, grave accent
Ó	Ó	Ó	Capital O, acute accent
Ô	Ô	Ô	Capital O, circumflex accent
Õ	Õ	Õ	Capital O, tilde
Ö	Ö	Ö	Capital O, umlaut
×	×	x	Multiply sign
Ø	Ø	Ø	Capital O, slash
Ù	Ù	Ù	Capital U, grave accent
Ú	Ú	Ú	Capital U, acute accent
Û	Û	Û	Capital U, circumflex accent
Ü	Ü	Ü	Capital U, umlaut
Ý	Ý		Capital Y, acute accent
Þ	Þ		Capital thorn, Icelandic
ß	ß	ß	Small sz ligature, German
à	à	à	Small a, grave accent
á	á	á	Small a, acute accent
â	â	â	Small a, circumflex accent
ã	ã	ã	Small a, tilde
ä	ä	ä	Small a, umlaut
å	å	å	Small a, ring
æ	æ	æ	Small ae ligature
ç	ç	ç	Small c, cedilla
è	è	è	Small e, grave accent
é	é	é	Small e, acute accent
ê	ê	ê	Small e, circumflex accent
ë	ë	ë	Small e, umlaut
ì	ì	ì	Small i, grave accent
í	í	í	Small i, acute accent
î	î	î	Small i, circumflex accent
ï	ï	ï	Small i, umlaut
ð	ð		Small eth, Icelandic
ñ	ñ	ñ	Small n, tilde
ò	ò	ò	Small o, grave accent
ó	ó	ó	Small o, acute accent
ô	ô	ô	Small o, circumflex accent
õ	õ	õ	Small o, tilde
ö	ö	ö	Small o, umlaut
÷	÷	÷	Division sign
ø	ø	ø	Small o, slash
ù	ù	ù	Small u, grave accent
ú	ú	ú	Small u, acute accent
û	û	û	Small u, circumflex accent
ü	ü	ü	Small u, umlaut
ý	ý	ý	Small y, acute accent
þ	þ		Small thorn, Icelandic
ÿ	ÿ	ÿ	Small y, umlaut