Looking for a List of Valid HTML Escape Characters?

HTML escape character lists often include characters between 128 and 159 – the problem is that these are Microsoft specific, and are reserved for control characters in the standard Internet character sets. In HTML they are undefined, and in XHTML they are completely invalid. Here is a list of valid HTML/XHTML escape characters you should use.

Table of HTML Escape Characters
Decimal Value (&#DV;) Escape Character Output
0 – 031 None Nothing
032 &sp; or ␣ Blank
033 ! !
034 "
035 # #
036 $ $
037 % %
038 & &
039 '
040 ( (
041 ) )
042 * *
043 + +
044 , ,
045 ‐ or − or ‐
046 . .
047 / /
048-057 = digits 0-9
058 : :
059 ; ;
060 < <
061 &equals; =
062 > >
063 &quest; ?
064 &commat; @
065 – 090 = letters A – Z
091 &lsqb; [
092 &bsol; \
093 &rsqb; ]
094 ˆ or &caret; ^
095 &lowbar; _
096 None (grave accent/back apostrophe) `
097 – 122 = letters a – z
123 &lcub; {
124 &verbar; |
125 &rcub; }
126 &tilde; or &sim; ~
127 None (delete) None
128 – 159 = unused (MS specific)
160 &nbsp; non-breaking space
161 &iexcl; ¡
162 &cent; ¢
163 &pound; £
164 &curren; ¤
165 &yen; ¥
166 ¦ or &brkbar; ¦
167 &sect; §
168 &uml; or &die; ¨
169 &copy; ©
170 &ordf; ª
171 &laquo; «
172 &not; ¬
173 &shy; (soft hyphen) None
174 &reg; ®
175 ¯ or &hibar; ¯
176 &deg; °
177 &plusmn; ±
178 &sup2; ²
179 &sup3; ³
180 &acute; ´
181 &micro; µ
182 &para;
183 &middot; ·
184 &cedil; ¸
185 &sup1; ¹
186 &ordm; º
187 &raquo; »
188 &frac14; ¼
189 ½ or &half; ½
190 &frac34; ¾
191 &iquest; ¿

Table of HTML Escape Characters

Hopefully you found this list of HTML escape characters useful. Note that not all lists published on the Internet will validate as valid HTML and XHTML. In some cases, if you’re editing in a plain text (i.e. no formatting is applied) environment, the use of an escape character is not necessary. This is the case with characters such as the apostrophe (‘), hyphen (-), quote (“), and others located as keys on your keyboard.

Hopefully this will save you some time when creating/ formatting your web pages. Please post below with any comments or requests you may have.

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