Special Characters & Symbols
Every common symbol, searchable by name — with its Alt code, HTML entity and escapes.
Click a symbol to copy it. In the grid, the arrow keys move and Enter copies.
Recently used
Results
Most used
The symbols people look for most often.
Arrows
Check marks, crosses & ballot boxes
Stars, flowers & asterisks
Bullets & list markers
Currency symbols
Maths
Superscripts & subscripts
For x², H₂O and footnote marks. Letters exist only for part of the alphabet.
Fractions
Greek letters
Accented letters
Western European letters, then Central and Eastern European ones.
Transliteration letters (IAST)
For writing Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages in Latin letters: Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Rāmāyaṇa.
Punctuation & typography
Spaces & invisible characters
They copy as real characters even though nothing shows.
Letterlike symbols & units
Keyboard & technical
Geometric shapes & card suits
Box drawing & blocks
Lines and blocks that join up in a monospace font, for tables and diagrams in plain text.
Circled numbers, letters & Roman numerals
Music
Weather, signs & everyday symbols
Indian scripts & symbols
Devanagari punctuation and digits, the rupee signs and religious symbols.
Kaomoji (text faces)
Faces made of several characters, popular in chats and comments.
Select a symbol
- Unicode
- Windows Alt code
- HTML entity
- HTML code
- HTML hex code
- CSS
- JavaScript / JSON
- UTF-8 bytes
About the Special Characters & Symbols
Nearly 1,500 symbols in one place, grouped by what they are for: arrows, check marks and ballot boxes, stars, bullets, currency signs (₹ € £ ¥ and more), maths, fractions, superscripts, Greek letters, accented letters, IAST letters for Indian languages, punctuation such as — … and °, spaces, box drawing, shapes and kaomoji. Click a symbol to copy it.
Every symbol is listed with its Unicode name, so you can search the way you would describe it — tick, rupee, right arrow, degree, em dash — or by code point (U+2192), HTML entity (→) or Windows Alt code (alt 0169). Paste a symbol into the search box to find out what it is. For each one you get the Windows Alt code where one exists, the HTML entity and numeric references, and the escapes for CSS and JavaScript.
How to use it
- Type what you need in the search box — arrow, tick, rupee, half or 1/2, U+2192, …, alt 26 — or jump to a group with the buttons above the grid. Paste a symbol to identify it.
- Click a symbol to copy it, then paste it with Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac). With the keyboard, use the arrow keys in the grid and Enter to copy.
- The panel next to the grid shows the selected symbol’s name, code point, Alt code, HTML and CSS/JavaScript codes, each with its own Copy button.
- To build a line with several symbols, choose Adds it to a text box under Clicking a symbol, click the symbols you need (they go in at the cursor) and copy the whole text.
Examples
→ (search: right arrow)
Unicode: U+2192 Alt code: Alt + 26 HTML: → → → CSS: \2192 JavaScript: \u2192 UTF-8: E2 86 92
alt 0169
© Copyright sign
Codes with a leading 0 are Windows-1252; codes without it are the older code page 437.
₹
Indian rupee sign — U+20B9, HTML ₹ (no named entity, no Alt code)
Common uses
- Adding ✓, ★, → or • to documents, posts, bios and spreadsheets.
- Typing ₹, °, ½, ² or accented names correctly when the keyboard has no key for them.
- Getting the HTML entity or CSS
contentescape for a web page. - Drawing tables and diagrams in plain text with box-drawing characters.
- Writing Sanskrit, Hindi or Tamil words in Latin letters with IAST marks (ā, ṣ, ṇ).
Windows Alt codes
Hold Alt, type the number on the numeric keypad (with Num Lock on) and let go of Alt. Codes that start with 0 — Alt + 0169 for © — type the character of the Windows “ANSI” code page, Windows-1252 on English and Western European Windows. Codes without the 0 — Alt + 26 for → — use the older OEM code page, 437 on US and Indian English Windows; on many European setups it is 850, where some of these codes give other characters. Codes 1–31 type the old IBM PC symbols (☺ ♥ ♪ →) in most programs, but some programs treat them as control keys: Alt + 9 can type a Tab.
Most symbols have no Alt code at all (₹, ✓ and ★ do not). On Windows 10 and 11, press Windows key + . and open the Symbols tab, or in Microsoft Word type the code point (for example 20B9) and press Alt + X.
HTML entities and numeric references
A named reference such as © or → works in every modern browser; the names come from the HTML standard, which defines about 2,200 of them. A numeric reference — decimal → or hex → — works for every character, including those without a name, like the rupee sign ₹. When a page is saved as UTF-8 (almost all are), you can also paste the symbol itself into the HTML.
CSS and JavaScript escapes
- CSS (
content: "\2192"): a backslash and up to six hex digits. If the next character is a hex digit (0–9, a–f) or a space, put a space after the escape — this tool adds it for you. - JavaScript and JSON (
"\u2192"): four hex digits. Characters above U+FFFF, such as 🗸 U+1F5F8, need two escapes (a surrogate pair,"\uD83D\uDDF8"), which both JavaScript and JSON accept; modern JavaScript also understands"\u{1F5F8}". - UTF-8 shows the bytes the character takes in a file or URL (E2 86 92 for →).
Typing symbols on a Mac, Linux or a phone
- Mac: Control + Command + Space opens the Character Viewer. With the US layout, Option + G types ©, Option + R ®, Option + 2 ™, Option + 8 •, Option + ; …, Option + Shift + 8 ° and Option + Shift + hyphen —. Other layouts differ for some keys: on the British layout, Option + 2 types €.
- Linux (GNOME and other IBus desktops): Ctrl + Shift + U, then the hex code, then Space.
- Phones: long-press a letter for its accented forms, or open the symbols page of the keyboard. Copying from this page works for everything else.
Where the names come from
Names are the official names from the Unicode Character Database, shown in sentence case (RIGHTWARDS ARROW becomes Rightwards arrow), plus everyday search words such as tick, rupee and em dash. Kaomoji have no Unicode names; their names are the ones commonly used for them. Characters that Unicode normalisation turns into look-alikes (the separate ohm, kelvin and ångström signs) are left out, because Unicode recommends the ordinary letters Ω, K and Å, which are listed.
Limitations
- How a symbol looks depends on the fonts of the device and app. Newer or rarer symbols (some arrows, music symbols, ballot marks) can appear as empty boxes on older devices.
- Alt codes work only on Windows, need a numeric keypad (on some laptops, Fn plus the keys marked with numbers) and depend on the code pages described above.
- In apps that use Markdown (Discord, Reddit, GitHub), a backslash escapes the next character, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ loses its left arm. Type ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ there.
- Some sites do not allow symbols or invisible characters in usernames, even though posts and bios accept them.
- Names are in English only.
- Looking up a character that is not in the collection downloads the full list of Unicode names (about 430 KB) the first time. So that this also works offline, the site may save it in the background after your first visit, unless your browser’s data saver is on or the connection is very slow.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.
Frequently asked questions
How do I copy a symbol?
Click it — it is copied straight away and a message confirms it. Then paste with Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac), or long-press and choose Paste on a phone.
How do I type the rupee symbol ₹?
Copy it here, or: on Windows with the English (India) keyboard layout press Right Alt + 4 (Ctrl + Alt + 4); in Word type 20B9 and press Alt + X; on Android and iPhone keyboards set to English (India) it is on the symbols page. There is no Windows Alt code for ₹, and its HTML code is ₹.
Why do some symbols show as boxes or question marks?
The device has no font that contains that character. The character itself is still correct — people on other devices see it — but if your readers use older phones or computers, choose a more common symbol.
What is the difference between → and →?
Both show → in a web page. → is a named reference from the HTML standard; → (decimal) and → (hex) are numeric references that work for every Unicode character, even those without a name.
Which tick mark should I use, ✓ or ✔?
Both are check marks: ✓ U+2713 is light, ✔ U+2714 is heavy. Some devices draw ✔ as a colourful emoji; ✓ and √ almost always stay plain text. For checklists there are also ballot boxes: ☐ empty, ☑ with a tick and ☒ with a cross.
Is anything I search or copy sent anywhere?
No. All symbols are part of this page, and searching and copying happen in your browser. The recently used symbols and your settings are saved only in this browser.