This tutorial will provide a sampling of some of the more common of these codes, and how to use them in your HTML pages. The htmlspecialchars() function converts some predefined characters to HTML entities. We use cookies to tailor your experience and measure site performance. One of the challenges of publishing content online is maintaining a certain level of visual consistency. Practical Ecommerce is an independent, family-owned, online magazine in Traverse City, Michigan, U.S. We are not affiliated with any e-commerce service, platform, or provider. (&) Obviously this one is frequently used. (®) Another frequently used symbol to indicate that the materials it appears on is a registered trademark of the owner. To display an ampersand simple use the code above. You may also need to display special characters in HTML that have a special meaning in HTML (<,>,&, etc). Notice that each of the codes begins with an Ampersand (&) and end with a semi-colon (;), which explains why you need a special code to display an Ampersand. … That is because these … Though probably not used as often, this one is a good one to be aware of. The Cents Symbol (¢): For them displaying these special characters can be a problem. Less Than and Greater Than (< , >): The tag takes the format of an ampersand (&), followed by the pound sign (#), followed by the number of the code, and ended by a semicolon (;). The biggest weakness with ASCII, was that it excluded non English letters. This same phenomenon is true for many other special characters that are commonly in use. There are times when it becomes necessary to display symbols or special characters in HTML that are not available on a standard keyboard, such as ©. © 2001-2020 Copyright TeachUcomp, Inc. All rights reserved. (©) This symbol is used quite frequently, and represents a copyright announcement for the materials upon which it appears. To display an HTML page correctly, the browser must know what character-set (encoding) to use: ... A-Z), and special characters like ! The reason for this is that HTML uses those “<” symbols as a bracket to enclose tags. However, it is important to realize that not all special characters will show up in all browsers. Essentially you just put the code in where you want the character to appear. Practical Ecommerce® is a HTML Character Sets HTML ASCII HTML ANSI HTML Windows-1252 HTML ISO-8859-1 HTML Symbols HTML UTF-8 × Exercises HTML Exercises CSS Exercises JavaScript Exercises SQL Exercises PHP Exercises Python Exercises jQuery Exercises Bootstrap Exercises Java Exercises C++ Exercises C# Exercises. The Trademark Symbol (™): If you have, you probably realized real quick that it didn’t quite show up in a browser the way that you expected. If you are using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive, you will probably not need these codes as much, since you can use the normal keyboard shortcuts, and the editor will automatically insert the code. These are special HTML codes that have been developed to represent the myriad of special characters available, such as the ones outlined above. Due to the nature of HTML, using some of these symbols can be confusing, but we are about the clear them up. Quizzes HTML Quiz CSS Quiz JavaScript Quiz SQL Quiz PHP Quiz Python Quiz jQuery Quiz … Use these codes to ensure that your content is displayed correctly to your customers. However, what about the other special characters, and what about those people that code their HTML by hand. (¢) The dollar sign works, but the cents symbol requires a special code. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Type the number of the proper code for the character you want to add. The Registered Trademark Symbol (®): When you want to insert a special character, select Insert > HTML > Special Characters. This will ensure that it displays correctly in most/all browsers. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. The following special characters are reserved in HTML. … The solution to this problem is special character codes in HTML. Here is a listing of a few common special characters: The Copyright Symbol (©): Along with the ampersand, these are the few characters that appear on your keyboard that require special codes. HTML Symbol Entities. (< or >) These are another that are frequently used but a bit confusing. Many mathematical, technical, and currency symbols, are not present on a normal keyboard. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The predefined characters are: & (ampersand) becomes &" (double quote) becomes " ' (single quote) becomes ' < (less than) becomes < > (greater than) becomes > Tip: To convert special HTML entities back to characters, use the htmlspecialchars_decode() function. A few of the more common tags are listed in the table below. Our mission is to publish authoritative articles, commentary, webinars, and podcasts to help online merchants. For example, the © (copyright) symbol can be displayed by using ©. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. You may also need to display special characters in HTML that have a special meaning in HTML (<,>,&, etc). You can also access special characters through application menus, such as the following example in Dreamweaver: If you are coding your HTML yourself, you will want to get familiar with using these codes. $ + - ( ) @ < > , . By using this site, you agree to accept our cookies. So in this case, the browser isn’t able to understand the context of the symbol, and simply mistakes it for a tag opening. From there are you presented with a few of the most common, or you can choose “Other” to view all the characters available. Simply type them as you normally would. The Ampersand (&): (é or è) Accent marks are common and confusing. (™) Similar to the registered trademark is the trademark symbol, usually used when the owner of the material it appears on has filed an application for a registered trademark. Simply select the character you would like to insert and the code is inserted for you. Often times printed materials will contain characters that aren’t obvious how to display in a markup language such as HTML. HTML renderers have always been able to display symbols which are not part of the encoding character set of the page, as long as you mention the symbol in its numeric character reference (NCR). As a business owner, being able to publish your content to the web represents an incredible distribution opportunity. If you plan to use any of the special characters on this page, you should use either the HTML entity name or the HTML entity number. What about the registered trademark symbol, accent marks, or even something as trivial as “greater than” and “less than” symbols? Since HTML only renders one space if there are gaps in the code, this is used when consecutive spaces need to be shown. The tag takes the format of an ampersand (&), followed by the pound sign (#), followed by the number of the code, and ended by a semicolon (;). The Non-breaking Space: Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. ( ) A non-breaking space is really just a space. In order to distinguish between characters that have significance in the code, and the ones that need to be displayed there are HTML character codes to ensure that your content appears the way you want it to. The following video lesson, titled “Special Characters,” shows you how to add special characters in HTML. If you use a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) HTML editor such as Adobe GoLive or Macromedia Dreamweaver to create your web pages, using things like the “greater than” and “less than” symbols isn’t a problem. Sounds weird but its true. HTML Reserved Characters. The Spanish Tilde (ñ): If you want to show a unicode character or symbol in one of cases, you can do so without changing the charset of your page. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The website Internet.com provides the following links to learn more about browser compatibility and special characters: Copyright © 2005 - 2020.