HTML Entities: Complete Reference and When to Use Them

Some characters have special meaning in HTML — the browser interprets them as markup, not content. HTML entities let you display these characters safely. Here's the complete reference for the most commonly used entities.

Why HTML Entities Exist

The < character starts an HTML tag. If you write it directly in content, the browser may misparse it as the beginning of a tag. The entity < renders the less-than sign safely.

Essential Entities

• < → < (less-than)
• > → > (greater-than)
• & → & (ampersand)
• " → " (double quote)
• ' → ' (apostrophe)
•   → non-breaking space
• © → © (copyright)
• ® → ® (registered)
• ™ → ™ (trademark)
• — → — (em dash)
• – → – (en dash)
• … → … (ellipsis)
• € → € (euro)
• £ → £ (pound)
• &rupee; → ₹ (rupee)

Numeric vs Named Entities

Every HTML entity can also be written numerically.© equals© (decimal) or© (hex). Named entities are more readable; numeric entities work for any Unicode character.

Modern HTML: Use UTF-8 Instead

With UTF-8 encoding (the default for all modern web pages), you can include most characters directly in your HTML without entities. Entities are still required for <, >, &, and " (inside attributes).