- Posted by lio on October 5, 2008
Some characters like the < character, have a special meaning in HTML, and therefore cannot be used in the text.
To display a less than sign (<) in HTML, we have to use a character entity.
Character Entities
Some
characters have a special meaning in HTML, like the less than sign
(<) that defines the start of an HTML tag. If we want the browser to
actually display these characters we must insert character entities in
the HTML source.
A character entity has three parts: an ampersand
(&), an entity name or a # and an entity number, and finally a
semicolon (;).
To display a less than sign in an HTML document we must write: < or <
The
advantage of using a name instead of a number is that a name is easier
to remember. The disadvantage is that not all browsers support the
newest entity names, while the support for entity numbers is very good
in almost all browsers.
Note that the entities are case sensitive.
Non-breaking Space
The most common character entity in HTML is the non-breaking space.
Normally
HTML will truncate spaces in your text. If you write 10 spaces in your
text HTML will remove 9 of them. To add spaces to your text, use the
character entity.
The Most Common Character Entities:
| Result | Description | Entity Name | Entity Number |
| |
non-breaking space |
|
  |
| < |
less than |
< |
< |
| > |
greater than |
> |
> |
| & |
ampersand |
& |
& |
| " |
quotation mark |
" |
" |
| ' |
apostrophe |
' (does not work in IE) |
' |
Some Other Commonly Used Character Entities:
| Result | Description | Entity Name | Entity Number |
| ¢ |
cent |
¢ |
¢ |
| £ |
pound |
£ |
£ |
| ¥ |
yen |
¥ |
¥ |
| € |
euro |
€ |
€ |
| § |
section |
§ |
§ |
| © |
copyright |
© |
© |
| ® |
registered trademark |
® |
® |
| × |
multiplication |
× |
× |
| ÷ |
division |
÷ |
÷ |