What is the difference between named and numeric HTML entities?

A named entity such as © uses a memorable keyword, while a numeric reference such as © or © uses the character's code point in decimal or hex. Numeric references always work, whereas named ones rely on the document recognising that name.

Why do I need to escape ampersand, less-than and greater-than?

The characters &, are structural in HTML, so writing them literally can break parsing. Use &, < and > to display them as text without the browser treating them as markup.

Which entity should I use for an em dash or en dash?

Use — (U+2014) for the long em dash used in sentence breaks, and – (U+2013) for the shorter en dash used in number ranges. Both have numeric equivalents if you prefer.

Are HTML entities the same as URL encoding?

No. HTML entities escape characters for display inside HTML, while URL or percent-encoding (%20, %26) escapes characters for use inside a URL. They serve different layers and are not interchangeable.

Does copying an entity contact a server?

No. The reference table is bundled with the page and filtered locally, and copy uses the browser clipboard API. Nothing you search or copy leaves your device.

What is the HTML Entities Reference?

Searchable HTML character reference with named entity, numeric and hex forms plus the rendered glyph. Find the right code for ampersand, copyright, em dash, arrows, fractions and more. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

HTML Entities Reference

Name: HTML Entities Reference
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Quick HTML character reference

HTML entities (character references) let you write characters that would otherwise break markup or be hard to type. This tool lists common HTML5 named references alongside their numeric and hexadecimal equivalents and the glyph each one renders. Search by name, description, glyph or decimal code point, then copy the form you need with one click.

How it works

Each character is stored by its Unicode code point. From that single number the tool derives three interchangeable forms: the named entity &name;, the numeric reference &#decimal;, and the hex reference &#xHEX;. The rendered glyph comes from String.fromCodePoint(cp). All three forms produce the same character in a browser, so you can pick whichever is most readable for your codebase.

The three forms side by side

Character	Named entity	Decimal	Hex
`&` (ampersand)	`&`	`&`	`&`
`<` (less-than)	`<`	`<`	`<`
`>` (greater-than)	`>`	`>`	`>`
`"` (double quote)	`"`	`"`	`"`
`'` (apostrophe)	`'`	`'`	`'`
`©` (copyright)	`©`	`©`	`©`
`—` (em dash)	`—`	`—`	`—`
`€` (euro)	`€`	`€`	`€`
`→` (right arrow)	`→`	`→`	`→`
`½` (one half)	`½`	`½`	`½`

When to use named vs numeric

Named entities (©, —) read well in source code and are the natural choice for the everyday characters above. Use them freely as long as the document declares UTF-8 — every modern browser supports all HTML5 named references.

Numeric references (€ or €) are the safer bet when:

You are unsure whether a named entity is in scope (older HTML4 had a smaller set).
The character has no named form but you still want to keep the file ASCII-safe.
You are generating markup programmatically and want a single consistent escaping strategy.

Which characters must always be escaped?

Five characters carry special meaning in HTML and must be escaped whenever they appear as literal text content or inside attribute values:

& → & — always, even in plain text nodes.
< → < — prevents the parser from opening a tag.
> → > — technically only required in certain contexts but safer to escape.
" → " — inside double-quoted attribute values.
' → ' or ' — inside single-quoted attribute values.

HTML entities are for HTML display only; they are not the same as URL percent-encoding (%26, %3C), which escapes characters for use inside links. The two encoding systems serve different layers and are not interchangeable.