HTML tutorial
CSS3 tutorial
Bootstrap tutorial
JavaScript tutorial
JQuery tutorial
AngularJS tutorial
React tutorial
NodeJS tutorial
PHP tutorial
Python tutorial
Python3 tutorial
Django tutorial
Linux tutorial
Docker tutorial
Ruby tutorial
Java tutorial
C tutorial
C ++ tutorial
Perl tutorial
JSP tutorial
Lua tutorial
Scala tutorial
Go tutorial
ASP.NET tutorial
C # tutorial
Reserved characters in HTML must be replaced with character entities
Some characters are reserved in HTML.
If you use the less than (<) or greater than (>) signs in your text, the browser might mix them with tags.
Character entities are used to display reserved characters in HTML.
A character entity looks like this:
&entity_name;
OR
&#entity_number;
To display a less than sign (<) we must write: < or <
Advantage of using an entity name: An entity name is easy to remember.
Disadvantage of using an entity name: Browsers may not support all entity names, but the support for
entity numbers is good.
A commonly used entity in HTML is the non-breaking space:
A non-breaking space is a space that will not break into a new line.
Two words separated by a non-breaking space will stick together (not break into a new line). This is handy when breaking the words might be disruptive.
Examples:
Another common use of the non-breaking space is to prevent browsers from truncating spaces in HTML pages.
If you write 10 spaces in your text, the browser will remove 9 of them. To add real spaces to your text, you can use the character entity.
Tip: The non-breaking hyphen (‑) is used to define a hyphen character (‑) that does not break into a new line.
| Result | Description | Entity Name | Entity Number | Try it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| non-breaking space | |   | Try it » | |
| < | less than | < | < | Try it » |
| > | greater than | > | > | Try it » |
| & | ampersand | & | & | Try it » |
| " | double quotation mark | " | " | Try it » |
| ' | single quotation mark (apostrophe) | ' | ' | Try it » |
| ¢ | cent | ¢ | ¢ | Try it » |
| £ | pound | £ | £ | Try it » |
| ¥ | yen | ¥ | ¥ | Try it » |
| € | euro | € | € | Try it » |
| © | copyright | © | © | Try it » |
| ® | registered trademark | ® | ® | Try it » |
Note: Entity names are case sensitive.
A diacritical mark is a "glyph" added to a letter.
Some diacritical marks, like grave ( ̀) and acute ( ́) are called accents.
Diacritical marks can appear both above and below a letter, inside a letter, and between two letters.
Diacritical marks can be used in combination with alphanumeric characters to produce a character that is not present in the character set (encoding) used in the page.
Here are some examples:
| Mark | Character | Construct | Result | Try it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ̀ | a | à | à | Try it » |
| ́ | a | á | á | Try it » |
| ̂ | a | â | â | Try it » |
| ̃ | a | ã | ã | Try it » |
| ̀ | O | Ò | Ò | Try it » |
| ́ | O | Ó | Ó | Try it » |
| ̂ | O | Ô | Ô | Try it » |
| ̃ | O | Õ | Õ | Try it » |
You will see more HTML symbols in the next chapter of this tutorial.