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Special characters
Special characters are the ones that weren’t included on the original QWERTY keyboard back when typewriters were the way people generated copy. They include everything from punctuation like the formatted em dash (—) and smart quotes (
If you do use special characters online, follow these guidelines:
- Don’t copy and paste into your webpage special characters that your word processor has created. This method of inserting special characters is the most likely to result in display problems.
- Ask your website’s designer or technical staff whether your content management system supports special characters. If it does, then ask the right way to code characters for that system, since there are various markup options. For instance, you can code a copyright symbol (©) by using its character entity reference (which is ©) or by using one of two types of numeric character references (the decimal form © or the hexadecimal form ©).
- Run a test before you publish. Make sure that any special characters you use will be displayed correctly in a browser, in an RSS feed, in a text message, or anywhere else your copy might appear. Special characters have been known to appear incorrectly in RSS feeds, text messages, and email messages in particular.
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Disable your word processor’s tendency to format smart quotes, em dashes, en dashes, ellipsis points, ordinal numbers with superscript, and fractions. For example, in Microsoft Office Word 2007 for Windows, click the Microsoft Office button, then Word Options > Proofing. Click AutoCorrect Options. On the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type tabs, uncheck the appropriate boxes. The process is similar in other versions of Word.
How to include special characters in your online content
To insert special characters, type the code for each character into the text where you want the character to appear.
Examples
Coded text: Text © Jo March. All rights reserved. (Character entity reference used for the copyright symbol)
Displayed text: Text © Jo March. All rights reserved.
Coded text: Text © Jo March. All rights reserved. (Hexadecimal numeric reference used for the copyright symbol)
Displayed text: Text © Jo March. All rights reserved.
Coded text: “You don’t mean…” Her voice trailed off. (Character entity references used for smart quotes, an apostrophe, and an ellipsis character)
Displayed text: “You don’t mean…” Her voice trailed off.
Coded text: “You don’t mean…” Her voice trailed off. (Decimal numeric references used for smart quotes, an apostrophe, and an ellipsis character)
Displayed text: “You don’t mean…” Her voice trailed off.
The following table shows three different ways to code the common special characters and symbols listed in the left column.
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Although all these coding styles (and more!) are in use, decimal numeric character references may be more commonly used and tend to be well-supported—that is, browsers and other software tend to be able to read them if they can read special characters at all. But check with your site administrator or technical staff to find out which is the best option for your site.
| Character | Entity | Decimal numeric | Hexadecimal numeric |
| em dash (—) | — | — | — |
| en dash (–) | – | – | – |
| single opening quote (‘) | ‘ | ‘ | ‘ |
| single closing quote (’) | ’ | ’ | ’ |
| double opening quote (“) | “ | “ | “ |
| double closing quote (”) | ” | ” | ” |
| ellipsis character (…) | … | … | … |
| nonbreaking space | |   |   |
| inverted question mark (¿) | ¿ | ¿ | ¿ |
| case fraction: one quarter (¼) | ¼ | ¼ | ¼ |
| case fraction: one half (½) | ½ | ½ | ½ |
| case fraction: three quarters (¾) | ¾ | ¾ | ¾ |
| superscript: two (²) | ² | ² | ² |
| superscript: three (³) | ³ | ³ | ³ |
| copyright symbol (©) | © | © | © |
| registered trademark symbol (®) | ® | ® | ® |
| unregistered trademark symbol (™) | ™ | ™ | ™ |
| degree symbol (°) | ° | ° | ° |
| currency symbol: euro (€) | € | € | € |
| currency symbol: pound (£) | £ | £ | £ |
| currency symbol: yen (¥) | ¥ | ¥ | ¥ |
| section sign (§) | § | § | § |
| small a with accent grave (à) | à | à | à |
| small a with accent acute (á) | á | á | á |
| small a with umlaut (ä) | ä | ä | ä |
| small c with cedilla (ç) | ç | ç | ç |
| small e with accent grave (è) | è | è | è |
| small e with accent acute (é) | é | é | é |
| small e with umlaut (ë) | ë | ë | ë |
| small i with accent grave (ì) | ì | ì | ì |
| small i with accent acute (í) | í | í | í |
| small i with circumflex (î) | î | î | î |
| small i with umlaut (ï) | ï | ï | ï |
| small n with tilde (ñ) | ñ | ñ | ñ |
| small o with accent grave (ò) | ò | ò | ò |
| small o with accent acute (ó) | ó | ó | ó |
| small o with umlaut (ö) | ö | ö | ö |
| small u with accent grave (ù) | ù | ù | ù |
| small u with accent acute (ú) | ú | ú | ú |
| small u with umlaut (ü) | ü | ü | ü |
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