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.
Table 10-3. Common special characters and their character entities
|
Character |
Description |
Name |
Number |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Character space (nonbreaking space) |
|
| |
|
& |
Ampersand |
|
|
|
< |
Less-than sign (useful for displaying tags on a web page) |
|
|
|
> |
Greater-than sign (useful for displaying tags on a web page) |
|
|
|
" |
Left curly quotes (nonstandard entity) |
(none) |
|
|
" |
Right curly quotes (nonstandard entity) |
(none) |
|
|
™ |
Trademark (nonstandard entity) |
(none) |
|
|
£ |
Pound symbol |
|
|
|
¥ |
Yen symbol |
|
|
|
© |
Copyright symbol |
|
|
|
® |
Registered trademark ... |
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