At least two kinds of special characters exist in HTML:
<ul>
<li>Entities
<ul>
<li>characters which do not appear on all keyboards; or
</li>
<li>characters that would interfere with HTML code such as <code>&lt;</code> and <code>&gt;</code>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Emoji
<ul>
<li>icons that no longer consist of image files but text-like characters</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="heading-entities">Entities</h2>
There are two ways to encode entities:
<pre><code class="lang-xml">&amp;lt; &lt;!-- "less than" - encoding by "name" --&gt;
</code></pre>
<pre><code class="lang-xml">&amp;#60; &lt;!-- "less than" - encoding by "#number" --&gt;
</code></pre>
Common entities include:
<div class="hn-table">
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>Appearance</td><td>Meaning</td><td>By name</td><td>By #number</td></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td><td>non-breaking space</td><td><code>&amp;nbsp;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#160;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>&lt;</td><td>less than</td><td><code>&amp;lt;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#60;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>\&gt;</td><td>greater than</td><td><code>&amp;gt;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#62;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>&amp;</td><td>ampersand</td><td><code>&amp;amp;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#38;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>¢</td><td>cent</td><td><code>&amp;cent;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#162;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>€</td><td>euro</td><td><code>&amp;euro;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#8364;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>£</td><td>pound</td><td><code>&amp;pound;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#163;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>¥</td><td>copyright</td><td><code>&amp;copy;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#169;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>®</td><td>registered trademark</td><td><code>&amp;reg;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#174;</code></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>™</td><td>trademark</td><td><code>&amp;trade;</code></td><td><code>&amp;#8482;</code></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>Remember that HTML entities "by name" are case sensitive, so <code>&amp;euro;</code> will work but not <code>&amp;Euro;</code>!
<h2 id="heading-emoji">Emoji</h2>
Emoji are just symbols like $ or % and we can simply input them using
<ul>
<li>an emoji keyboard (<code>Fn + E</code> on a Mac)
</li>
<li>an HTML entity code (such as <code>&amp;#128516</code> for 😁)
</li>
</ul>
We also need to ensure that the <code>&lt;head&gt;</code> tag contains the following in order for the emoji to appear on the page:
<pre><code class="lang-xml">...
&lt;head&gt;
 ...
 &lt;meta charset="UTF-8"&gt;
 ...
&lt;/head&gt;
...
</code></pre>
One final word: the plural of emoji is "emoji" (as in Japanese) and its <a target="_blank" href="https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/emoji">semblance to "emotion"</a> was a complete coincidence!

At least two kinds of special characters exist in HTML:

* **Entities**
 
 * characters which do not appear on all keyboards; or
 
 * characters that would interfere with HTML code such as `<` and `>`
 
* **Emoji**
 
 * icons that no longer consist of image files but text-like characters
 

## Entities

There are two ways to encode entities:

```xml
&lt; 
```

```xml
&#60; 
```

Common entities include:

| **Appearance** | **Meaning** | **By name** | **By #number** |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | non-breaking space | `&nbsp;` | `&#160;` |
| &lt; | less than | `&lt;` | `&#60;` |
| \&gt; | greater than | `&gt;` | `&#62;` |
| & | ampersand | `&amp;` | `&#38;` |
| ¢ | cent | `&cent;` | `&#162;` |
| € | euro | `&euro;` | `&#8364;` |
| £ | pound | `&pound;` | `&#163;` |
| ¥ | copyright | `&copy;` | `&#169;` |
| ® | registered trademark | `&reg;` | `&#174;` |
| ™ | trademark | `&trade;` | `&#8482;` |

Remember that HTML entities "by name" are case sensitive, so `&euro;` will work but not `&Euro;`!

## Emoji

Emoji are just symbols like $ or % and we can simply input them using

* an emoji keyboard (`Fn + E` on a Mac)
 
* an HTML entity code (such as `&#128516` for 😁)
 

We also need to ensure that the `<head>` tag contains the following in order for the emoji to appear on the page:

```xml
...
<head>
 ...
 <meta charset="UTF-8">
 ...
</head>
...
```

One final word: the plural of emoji is "emoji" (as in Japanese) and its [semblance to "emotion"](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/emoji) was a complete coincidence!

Appearance	Meaning	By name	By #number
	non-breaking space	` `	` `
<	less than	`<`	`<`
\>	greater than	`>`	`>`
&	ampersand	`&`	`&`
¢	cent	`¢`	`¢`
€	euro	`€`	`€`
£	pound	`£`	`£`
¥	copyright	`©`	`©`
®	registered trademark	`®`	`®`
™	trademark	`™`	`™`

HTML special characters

adding non-alphanumeric text

Entities

Emoji