XHTML 1.0 Special Character References

This article details the special character references and corresponding entity references available to your XHTML 1.0 documents.

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Article Index

  1. XHTML 1.0 Latin-1 Character References
  2. XHTML 1.0 Special Character References
  3. XHTML 1.0 Symbol Character References

Introduction to XHTML 1.0 Special Character References

This article details the special character references and corresponding entity references available to your XHTML 1.0 documents. This is the second of a series of three articles detailing each of the three sets laid out in the XHTML DTDs.

An explanation of character references will be given in part two of my article XHTML Web Design for Beginners. I decided to release these tables as separate articles in order to make them easily accessible to those who don’t want to read the series.

What the Columns Mean

The first column gives the named version of the entity, the second is the named entity itself. This allows you to see if that character reference works in the browser you are using to view this document via the named entity.

The third column gives the numeric entity, the fourth is the numeric entity itself. This allows you to see if that character reference works in the browser you are using to view this document via the numeric entity.

The fifth column is the description of the entity as found in the XHTML 1.0 DTDs at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#a_dtd_Special_characters.

Entity Reference Test Character Reference Test Description
C0 Controls and Basic Latin
" " " " quotation mark, U+0022 ISOnum
& & & & ampersand, U+0026 ISOnum
&lt; < &#60; < less-than sign, U+003C ISOnum
&gt; > &#62; > greater-than sign, U+003E ISOnum
&apos; ' &#39; ' apostrophe = APL quote, U+0027 ISOnum
Latin Extended-A
&OElig; Π&#338; Πlatin capital ligature OE, U+0152 ISOlat2
&oelig; œ &#339; œ latin small ligature oe, U+0153 ISOlat2
note: ligature is a misnomer, this is a separate character in some languages
&Scaron; Š &#352; Š latin capital letter S with caron, U+0160 ISOlat2
&scaron; š &#353; š latin small letter s with caron, U+0161 ISOlat2
&Yuml; Ÿ &#376; Ÿ latin capital letter Y with diaeresis, U+0178 ISOlat2
Spacing Modifier Letters
&circ; ˆ &#710; ˆ modifier letter circumflex accent, U+02C6 ISOpub
&tilde; ˜ &#732; ˜ small tilde, U+02DC ISOdia
General Punctuation
&ensp; &#8194; en space, U+2002 ISOpub
&emsp; &#8195; em space, U+2003 ISOpub
&thinsp; &#8201; thin space, U+2009 ISOpub
&zwnj; &#8204; zero width non-joiner, U+200C NEW RFC 2070
&zwj; &#8205; zero width joiner, U+200D NEW RFC 2070
&lrm; &#8206; left-to-right mark, U+200E NEW RFC 2070
&rlm; &#8207; right-to-left mark, U+200F NEW RFC 2070
&ndash; &#8211; en dash, U+2013 ISOpub
&mdash; &#8212; em dash, U+2014 ISOpub
&lsquo; &#8216; left single quotation mark, U+2018 ISOnum
&rsquo; &#8217; right single quotation mark, U+2019 ISOnum
&sbquo; &#8218; single low-9 quotation mark, U+201A NEW
&ldquo; &#8220; left double quotation mark, U+201C ISOnum
&rdquo; &#8221; right double quotation mark, U+201D ISOnum
&bdquo; &#8222; double low-9 quotation mark, U+201E NEW
&dagger; &#8224; dagger, U+2020 ISOpub
&Dagger; &#8225; double dagger, U+2021 ISOpub
&permil; &#8240; per mille sign, U+2030 ISOtech
&lsaquo; &#8249; single left-pointing angle quotation mark, U+2039 ISO proposed
note:lsaquo is proposed but not yet ISO standardized
&rsaquo; &#8250; single right-pointing angle quotation mark, U+203A ISO proposed
note:rsaquo is proposed but not yet ISO standardized
Currency Symbols
&euro; &#8364; euro sign, U+20AC NEW

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