What are the Character Entities in HTML?

**Damien25** · 29-01-2010

I have just started with the HTML programming language. I am very new to programming language. I am in secondary school and very eager to know about more things in HTML.!! While referencing some books I read the Character Entities in HTML. There was not more description on that topic. So I thought to post my query here. I just want to know more about the character entities. Can someone explain what are the Character Entities in HTML? Hoping that you guys will help me soon.!!

**Praetor** · 29-01-2010

In HTML some characters are reserved. I will give you an example for that, so it will be better for you to understand. You cannot use the greater than or less than signs within your text because the browser that you are using could mistake them for markup. Suppose that if you want to display these characters on the browsers, then you will have to insert the character entities in the source of HTML. A character looks like : &entity_name; . For example if you want to display a greater than sign, then you must write :
> or >. Now the > is the &#entity_number; for the greater than sign. You can also use the &#entity_number; for displaying the greater than sign. But writing the &#entity_number; is difficult, since we cannot remember the &#entity_number; for every value. So it will be better to use the &entity_name; which is more simple than &#entity_number;.

**Katty** · 29-01-2010

I would like to tell you more about the Character Entities in HTML. The Character Entity in HTML has been formatted with accessibility and usability considerations. Using the definition list format, the Entity Reference List is presented. The presence of this list allows usable small screen rendering on numerous Internet devices including PDAs and Internet capable cell phones. When displayed on the small screen rendering devices, this lists presented using tables may lose their logical relational order to the contained elements.

**kelfro** · 29-01-2010

I think that the Non-breaking Space is the most common character entity in HTML. Otherwise the HTML will truncate spaces in your text. If you write 5 spaces in your text HTML will remove 4 of them. So, if you want to add more spaces to your text then you will have to use the   character entity. You will have to write the   for n times, if you want n spaces in your text. Suppose if you want 3 spaces in your text, then you will write       (for 3 times). After writing this you will get 3 spaces in your text.

**Zecho** · 29-01-2010

I thought that since you are new to HTML, providing you with the commonly used character entities will be much helpful. Also you will have to keep in mind that the entities names are case sensitive. Here are list of commonly used character entities in HTML along with their entity number :

non-breaking space - The entity name is  
greater than - The entity name is > and the symbol is >
less than - The entity name is <and the symbol is <
ampersand - The entity name is & and the symbol is &

**absolute55** · 29-01-2010

I am giving you some more character entities that are used in HTML. Below are some useful character entities :

Code:

[ ¤ ] currency
    [name: &curren;] [number: &#164;]
[ ¢ ] cent
    [name: &cent; ] [number: &#162;]
[ £ ] pound
    [name: &pound;] [number: &#163;]
[ € ] euro sign
    [name: &euro;] [number: €]
[ ¥ ] yen
    [name: &yen;] [number: &#165;]
[ ¡ ] inverted exclamation mark
    [name: &iexcl;] [number: &#161;]
[ ¦ ] broken vertical bar
    [name: &brvbar;] [number: &#166;]