HTML Entities

HTML character entities are used to replace characters that aren’t allowed to be used. You can also use entities to stand in for characters that you don’t have on your keyboard.

Some of these characters are changed because HTML doesn’t let you use all characters. HTML entities give you access to a wide range of characters that you can use to add icons, geometric shapes, mathematical operators, and other things.

For example, if you use the less than () or greater than (>) symbols in your text, the browser might mix them up with tags. This is why character entities are used in HTML to show reserved characters.

How to use an entity:

You can use an entity in an HTML document either by its name or by its number. Each thing begins with the symbol “&” and ends with a “;” (;).

Syntax:

 &entity_name;
OR
&#entity_num;

Entities for HTML Characters Most Often Used

Entity names are case sensitive.

A good thing about an entity name is that it’s easy to remember.

Entity names may not be supported by all browsers, but browsers do a good job of supporting numbers.

Diacritical Marks in HTML

In HTML, there are some special kinds of letters that have glyphs added to the top or bottom. The name for these symbols is diacritical mark.

Accents are some of the diacritical marks, like grave ( ̀) and acute ( ̀).

You can put diacritical marks above or below a letter, inside a letter, or between two letters.

Here are some examples of diacritical marks: