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1. HTML intro
2. Web pages and you

1. HTML getting started
2. HTML basics
3. HTML document

1. HTML text formatting 1
2. HTML text formatting 2
3. HTML text formatting 3
4. HTML fonts
5. HTML entities

1. HTML links
2. HTML email links

1. HTML images
2. HTML image maps

1. HTML forms
2. HTML form labels
3. HTML fieldset/legend

1. HTML tables
2. HTML tables concepts

1. HTML frames

1. HTML backgrounds
2. HTML colors
3. HTML color shades
4. HTML color usage

1. HTML stylesheets
2. HTML div/span

1. HTML audio
2. HTML video
3. HTML objects
4. HTML download media

1. HTML head section
2. HTML meta tags
3. HTML scripts
4. HTML declarations
5. HTML document types

1. HTML tag rules
2. HTML things to avoid
3. URL formatting
4. URL encoding/decoding
5. HTML use/access
6. HTML publish work

1. HTML marquees

1. HTML history
2. HTML summary

HTML entities

There is so much text on so many webpages across the web, and some of this text happens to be special characters that do not appear on a keyboard. How then, to go about including such characters on webpages?

This tutorial focuses on:

• What is an entity?
• Entity construction
• Common entities
• Reverse entities

What is an entity?

An entity is a symbol that is displayed on a webpage such as the copyright symbol ( © ), the trademark symbol (™), and the ampersand symbol (&). Each entity is displayed using a special code.

Entity construction

Now that you what entities are, how do you go displaying them?

An HTML entity code has three parts:

• An ampersand ( & )
• An entity name or a # sign and an entity number
• A semicolon ( ; )

For example, to display a greater than sign on a webpage, we would write > or >

NOTE: While you can use names or numbers for character entities, it is better to use names because they are easier to remember.

NOTE: Entities are case sensitive!

Common entities

There are many entities you can use, the ones below are very commonly used.

Common character entities and what they will display:

For a full list of HTML character entities, read our HTML character entities reference page.

Read more about text formatting in our HTML text formatting 1, HTML text formatting 2, and HTML text formatting 3 tutorials.

Reverse entities

What if you wanted to print the code for an entity on a webpage instead of the character itself?

Remember that every entity begins with the & symbol, and how do we display this symbol? By using the & entity. So to display the code for an entity on a webpage instead of the character itself, simply use & to produce an & symbol followed by the rest of the entity code.