HTML Entities & Special Characters

Badar KhalilUpdated September 27, 2026 2 min read

HTML Entities & Special Characters

Focus Keyword: html entities | Trending Keyword: html special characters list

HTML entities let you safely display reserved characters (like < and >) and special characters that aren't easily typed on a keyboard. Every entity begins with an ampersand & and ends with a semicolon ;. Searches for an "html special characters list" spike constantly among developers who need quick reference tables like the one below.

Why Use Entities?

To display reserved HTML characters (<, >, &, ", ') without breaking the markup.
To insert characters not present on a standard keyboard (©, €, ♥).
To ensure consistent rendering across browsers and encodings.

Entity Syntax

There are three ways to write an entity:

Named entity: © → ©
Decimal numeric reference: © → ©
Hexadecimal numeric reference: © → ©

Essential Reserved Character Entities

Character	Entity Name	Numeric	Description
<	<	<	Less than
>	>	>	Greater than
&	&	&	Ampersand
"	"	"	Double quote
'	'	'	Single quote/apostrophe
			Non-breaking space

When You Must Use Entities

If you want a literal "<" to appear as text on the page (not be interpreted as the start of a tag), you MUST use <. Typing a raw "<" in content will confuse the browser's HTML parser.

Common Mistakes

Forgetting the trailing semicolon (some browsers tolerate it, but it's invalid and unreliable).
Double-escaping ampersands, producing &amp;.
Using raw "&" in URLs instead of "&" inside HTML attribute values.

Try it Yourself HTML

<!-- Displaying reserved characters safely -->
<p>To create a paragraph, use the &lt;p&gt; tag.</p>
<p>Ben &amp; Jerry's is a famous ice cream brand.</p>
<p>She said, &quot;HTML entities are useful!&quot;</p>

Output

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Try it Yourself HTML

<!-- Three ways to write the same copyright symbol -->
<p>Named:    &copy;</p>
<p>Decimal:  &#169;</p>
<p>Hex:      &#x00A9;</p>

<!-- Non-breaking space keeps these words on the same line -->
<p>Price:&nbsp;$19.99</p>

Output

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Try it Yourself JAVASCRIPT

<!-- JavaScript helper to escape user input as HTML entities -->
function escapeHTML(str) {
  return str
    .replace(/&/g, '&amp;')
    .replace(/</g, '&lt;')
    .replace(/>/g, '&gt;')
    .replace(/"/g, '&quot;')
    .replace(/'/g, '&#39;');
}

console.log(escapeHTML('<script>alert("hi")</script>'));
// Output: &lt;script&gt;alert(&quot;hi&quot;)&lt;/script&gt;

Output

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Exercise: Escape the Reserved CharactersHTML

Rewrite the following text so it displays correctly as literal text in a browser, using proper HTML entities: Use <div> & <span> tags for "layout".

Try it Yourself HTML

<p>Use <div> & <span> tags for "layout".</p>

Output

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This is a self-check — compare your result with the expected output above.

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