Reserved characters in HTML must be replaced with character entities.
Some characters are reserved in HTML.
It is not possible to use the less than (<) or greater than (>) signs in your text, because the browser will mix them with tags.
To actually display reserved characters, we must use character entities in the HTML source code.
A character entity looks like this:
OR
&#entity_number;To display a less than sign we must write: < or <
Tip: The advantage of using an entity name, instead of a number, is that the name
is easier to remember. However, the disadvantage is that browsers may not support
all entity names (the support for entity numbers is very
good).
A common character entity used in HTML is the non-breaking space ( ).
Browsers will always truncate spaces in HTML pages. If you write 10 spaces in your text, the browser will remove 9 of them, before displaying the page. To add spaces to your text, you can use the character entity.
Experiment with HTML character entities: Try it yourself
Note: Entity names are case sensitive!
| Result | Description | Entity Name | Entity Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| non-breaking space | |   | |
| < | less than | < | < |
| > | greater than | > | > |
| & | ampersand | & | & |
| ¢ | cent | ¢ | ¢ |
| £ | pound | £ | £ |
| ¥ | yen | ¥ | ¥ |
| € | euro | € | € |
| § | section | § | § |
| © | copyright | © | © |
| ® | registered trademark | ® | ® |
| ™ | trademark | ™ | ™ |
For a complete reference of all character entities, visit our HTML Entities Reference.
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