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• Symbols

Symbols

When a character of a character set cannot be entered directly into a document (for instance a greek letter cannot be directly entered using a 102-keys english keyboard), one may use character references. Character reference is a character encoding-independent mechanism for entering any character from the document character set.

In HTML, there are two forms of character references:

• Numerical character references (either decimal or hexadecimal).
• Character entity references.

Numerical character references specify the code position of a character in the document character set. Numeric character references may take two forms:

• "&#D", where D is the decimal value of the character.
• "&#xH", where H is the hexadecimal value of the character.

Character entity references specify the symbolic name of a character in the document character set. Therefore authors do not have to remember the code position of a character; (it is believed that human remember names better than numbers). But this also implies that only characters with standard symbolic name defined can be specified using entity references.

Table 1 below shows character entity references for symbols, mathematical symbols and greek letters. The Dec and Hex columns represent the decimal and hexadecimal values of the code position of the character. The Entity column represents the symbolic name used for character entity reference. The Char column shows the character as rendered by your user agent. To support these entities, user agents (e.g. your browser) must support full ISO10646 or something equivalent. If your user agent does not support the full ISO10646, some of the characters will not be rendered correctly.

The characters are grouped into categories: latin extended-B, greek letters, general punctuations, letter-like symbols, arrows, mathematical operators, miscellaneous technical, geometric shapes and miscellaneous symbols.

Table 1 - Symbols, Mathematical symbols and Greek letters.

Dec	Hex	Entity	Char	Description
Latin Extended-B
402	192	fnof	ƒ	latin small f with hook
Greek letters
913	391	Alpha	Α	greek capital letter alpha
914	392	Beta	Β	greek capital letter beta
915	393	Gamma	Γ	greek capital letter gamma
916	394	Delta	Δ	greek capital letter delta
917	395	Epsilon	Ε	greek capital letter epsilon
918	396	Zeta	Ζ	greek capital letter zeta
919	397	Eta	Η	greek capital letter eta
920	398	Theta	Θ	greek capital letter theta
921	399	Iota	Ι	greek capital letter iota
922	39A	Kappa	Κ	greek capital letter kappa
923	39B	Lambda	Λ	greek capital letter lambda
924	39C	Mu	Μ	greek capital letter mu
925	39D	Nu	Ν	greek capital letter nu
926	39E	Xi	Ξ	greek capital letter xi
927	39F	Omicron	Ο	greek capital letter omicron
928	3A0	Pi	Π	greek capital letter pi
929	3A1	Rho	Ρ	greek capital letter rho
931	3A3	Sigma	Σ	greek capital letter sigma
932	3A4	Tau	Τ	greek capital letter tau
933	3A5	Upsilon	Υ	greek capital letter upsilon
934	3A6	Phi	Φ	greek capital letter phi
935	3A7	Chi	Χ	greek capital letter chi
936	3A8	Psi	Ψ	greek capital letter psi
937	3A9	Omega	Ω	greek capital letter omega
945	3B1	alpha	α	greek small letter alpha
946	3B2	beta	β	greek small letter beta
947	3B3	gamma	γ	greek small letter gamma
948	3B4	delta	δ	greek small letter delta
949	3B5	epsilon	ε	greek small letter epsilon
950	3B6	zeta	ζ	greek small letter zeta
951	3B7	eta	η	greek small letter eta
952	3B8	theta	θ	greek small letter theta
953	3B9	iota	ι	greek small letter iota
954	3BA	kappa	κ	greek small letter kappa
955	3BB	lambda	λ	greek small letter lambda
956	3BC	mu	μ	greek small letter mu
957	3BD	nu	ν	greek small letter nu
958	3BE	xi	ξ	greek small letter xi
959	3BF	omicron	ο	greek small letter omicron
960	3C0	pi	π	greek small letter pi
961	3C1	rho	ρ	greek small letter rho
962	3C2	sigmaf	ς	greek small letter final sigma
963	3C3	sigma	σ	greek small letter sigma
964	3C4	tau	τ	greek small letter tau
965	3C5	upsilon	υ	greek small letter upsilon
966	3C6	phi	φ	greek small letter phi
967	3C7	chi	χ	greek small letter chi
968	3C8	psi	ψ	greek small letter psi
969	3C9	omega	ω	greek small letter omega
977	3D1	thetasym	ϑ	greek small letter theta symbol
978	3D2	upsih	ϒ	greek upsilon with hook symbol
982	3D6	piv	ϖ	greek pi symbol
General Punctuation
8226	2022	bull	•	bullet = black small circle
8230	2026	hellip	…	horizontal ellipsis = three dot leader
8242	2032	prime	′	prime = minutes = feet
8243	2033	Prime	″	double prime = seconds = inches
8254	203E	oline	‾	overline = spacing overscore
8260	2044	frasl	⁄	fraction slash
Letter-like Symbols
8472	2118	weierp	℘	script capital P = power set
8465	2111	image	ℑ	blackletter capital I = imaginary part
8476	211C	real	ℜ	blackletter capital R = real part symbol
8482	2122	trade	™	trade mark sign
8501	2135	alefsym	ℵ	alef symbol = first transfinite cardinal
Arrows
8592	2190	larr	←	leftwards arrow
8593	2191	uarr	↑	upwards arrow
8594	2192	rarr	→	rightwards arrow
8595	2193	darr	↓	downwards arrow
8596	2194	harr	↔	left right arrow
8629	21B5	crarr	↵	downwards arrow with corner leftwards = carriage return
8656	21D0	lArr	⇐	leftwards double arrow
8657	21D1	uArr	⇑	upwards double arrow
8658	21D2	rArr	⇒	rightwards double arrow
8659	21D3	dArr	⇓	downwards double arrow
8660	21D4	hArr	⇔	left right double arrow
Mathematical Operators
8704	2200	forall	∀	for all
8706	2202	part	∂	partial differential
8707	2203	exist	∃	there exists
8709	2205	empty	∅	empty set = null set = diameter
8711	2207	nabla	∇	nabla = backward difference
8712	2208	isin	∈	element of
8713	2209	notin	∉	not an element of
8715	220B	ni	∋	contains as member
8719	220F	prod	∏	n-ary product = product sign
8721	2211	sum	∑	n-ary sumation
8722	2212	minus	−	minus sign
8727	2217	lowast	∗	asterisk operator
8730	221A	radic	√	square root = radical sign
8733	221D	prop	∝	proportional to
8734	221E	infin	∞	infinity
8736	2220	ang	∠	angle
8743	2227	and	∧	logical and = wedge
8744	2228	or	∨	logical or = vee
8745	2229	cap	∩	intersection = cap
8746	222A	cup	∪	union = cup
8747	222B	int	∫	integral
8756	2234	there4	∴	therefore
8764	223C	sim	∼	tilde operator = varies with = similar to
8773	2245	cong	≅	approximately equal to
8776	2248	asymp	≈	almost equal to = asymptotic to
8800	2260	ne	≠	not equal to
8801	2261	equiv	≡	identical to
8804	2264	le	≤	less-than or equal to
8805	2265	ge	≥	greater-than or equal to
8834	2282	sub	⊂	subset of
8835	2283	sup	⊃	superset of
8836	2284	nsub	⊄	not a subset of
8838	2286	sube	⊆	subset of or equal to
8839	2287	supe	⊇	superset of or equal to
8853	2295	oplus	⊕	circled plus = direct sum
8855	2297	otimes	⊗	circled times = vector product
8869	22A5	perp	⊥	up tack = orthogonal to = perpendicular
8901	22C5	sdot	⋅	dot operator
Miscellaneous Technical
8968	2308	lceil	⌈	left ceiling = apl upstile
8969	2309	rceil	⌉	right ceiling
8970	230A	lfloor	⌊	left floor = apl downstile
8971	230B	rfloor	⌋	right floor
9001	2329	lang	〈	left-pointing angle bracket = bra
9002	232A	rang	〉	right-pointing angle bracket = ket
Geometric Shapes
9674	25CA	loz	◊	lozenge
Miscellaneous Symbols
9824	2660	spades	♠	black spade suit
9827	2663	clubs	♣	black club suit = shamrock
9829	2665	hearts	♥	black heart suit = valentine
9830	2666	diams	♦	black diamond suit

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