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10.8. Character Entity References

Characters not found in the normal alphanumeric character set, such as < and &, must be specified in HTML using character entities. Using the standard desktop publishing keyboard commands (such as Option-g for the © symbol) within an HTML document will not produce the desired character when the document is rendered in a browser. In fact, the browser generally displays the numeric entity for the character.

Character entities can be referenced by name (&name;) or by numeric value (&#nnn;). The browser interprets the string to display the proper character. Named entities are preferable because numeric values may be interpreted differently on different platforms.

Table 10-3 presents the character entities for commonly used special characters. The complete list appears in Appendix F, "Character Entities".

Table 10-3. Common special characters and their character entities

Character

Description

Name

Number

Character space (nonbreaking space)

&nbsp;

&#160;

&

Ampersand

&amp;

&#038;

<

Less-than sign (useful for displaying tags on a web page)

&lt;

&#060;

>

Greater-than sign (useful for displaying tags on a web page)

&gt;

&#062;

"

Left curly quotes (nonstandard entity)

(none)

&#147;

"

Right curly quotes (nonstandard entity)

(none)

&#148;

Figure 10-3

Trademark (nonstandard entity)

(none)

&#153;

£

Pound symbol

&pound;

&#163;

¥

Yen symbol

&yen;

&#165;

©

Copyright symbol

&copy;

&#169;

®

Registered trademark

&reg;

&#174;
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