Help:Special characters

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MediaWiki uses Unicode (UTF-8) for character encoding. This allows for a wide range of characters, including CJK characters^[1], to be included directly in wikitext. The characters are encoded using a variable number of bytes per character.

Notable special characters

Accented letters and umlauts

À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Œ Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ

Punctuation marks

¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • - – —

Business symbols

™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤

Greek alphabets

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω

Mathematical symbols

∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ø ∈ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔ ↑ ℵ ∉

Subscript and superscript characters

x₀ x₁ x₂ x₃ x₄ x₅ x₆ x₇ x₈ x₉ x⁰ x¹ x² x³ x⁴ x⁵ x⁶ x⁷ x⁸ x⁹

Typing special characters

Use a Special characters button above the edit box. This requires the wiki to have the CharInsert extension installed. The available characters depend on the wiki and user preferences; the lists can be collapsible or menu-selected.
Copy the character from a webpage or a local page. It shouldn't be an image or part of an image, such as those generated by the TeX feature of the wiki.
Use a special keyboard or a special browser function. The UniversalLanguageSelector extension provides various built-in special keyboards.
Use an HTML named character entity reference like à or an HTML numeric character reference like ¡, then copy the character from the preview. The code itself used to be stored in the wikitext. This might still be present on some pages and can affect the internal search function. Some characters like "→" can't be found by the search function unless coded as →. See Help:Searching .

Linking text with special characters

Many users have a setting that displays underlined links. This setting is available in the "Appearance > Advanced options" section on the Preferences page. For example, when adding a link to characters like , −, <, >, ⊂, ⊃, with underlined links enabled (thus rendering as , −, <, >, ⊂, ⊃), they may look like different symbols such as ±, =, ≤, ≥, ⊆, ⊇. Suppose you want to link the mathematical symbols for "subset" and "superset" in a MediaWiki article. If you simply link the symbols ⊂ and ⊃, they might be confusing or mistaken for other symbols due to their visual similarity. Here's how you can use clear links to represent subset and superset.

Wikitext	Rendering
A [[Subset\|⊂]] B	A ⊂ B
A [[Superset\|⊃]] B	A ⊃ B

This links ⊂ and ⊃ to the "Subset" and "Superset" articles respectively, making it clear that ⊂ represents a subset or superset.

If you want to combine symbols and text to make it clearer, you can use: A [[Subset|⊂]] B (where ⊂ indicates a subset) This provides context for the symbol ⊂ by explicitly mentioning that it indicates a subset.

There's less risk of confusion when linking phrases or multiple characters. For example: [[x|''x'' > 3]]

x is the target page, and x > 3 is the text that will appear as the link. The use of '' around x indicates emphasis (italicization), making it stand out. This visual distinction helps users recognize that it's a specific term or variable, not just a random character.

Alt keycodes

Certain special characters with decimal codepoints below 256 can be typed using the keyboard by pressing Alt Decimal code numbers.

For example, to type the character é (small e with acute accent, HTML entity code é), press Alt 130, then release Alt.

However, some special characters like λ (small lambda) cannot be typed using their decimal codes (955 or 0955) with the Alt key in applications like Notepad or Internet Explorer, resulting in incorrect characters like "╗" or "»".

Wordpad, on the other hand, supports decimal codepoints above 256, allowing you to enter and copy special/unicode characters. Alternatively, you can use hex codepoints followed by Alt X in Wordpad or Word (not in IE or Notepad). For instance, type 3BB (the hex code for λ) and press Alt X to convert 3BB into λ. Pressing Alt X again will revert λ to 3BB. This allows you to copy and paste the character wherever needed, or use its HTML codes λ or λ.

Mathematical notation

You can use HTML  and  tags to generate superscript and subsript characters without directly typing them in wikitext:

xk -> x_k
xk -> x^k

Some characters can be directly entered using HTML entities:

→ -> →, etc.

More complex equations can be entered using <math> syntax:

<math>\sqrt x</math> → $\sqrt{x}$
<math>x_k</math> -> $x_{k}$
<math>x^k</math> -> $x^{k}$

Egyptian hieroglyphs

To display Egyptian hieroglyphs, use the <hiero> tag. For example:

{{#tag:hiero|a-p:t-q}} ->

See Extension:WikiHiero/Syntax for more details.

External resources for Unicode characters

Unicode character charts: Hexadecimal charts in PDF format, displaying all characters independent of your browser's capabilities.
Unicode support help: Guides for enabling Unicode on various platforms.
HTML 4.0 Character Entity References: Demonstrates named and decimal character references in your browser.
FileFormat.Info: In-depth details on many Unicode characters, showing named, decimal, and hexadecimal references, and their appearance in your browser.
Alan Wood's Unicode Resources: Extensive resource with character test pages for all Unicode ranges, including OS-specific support and links to fonts and utilities.

Notes

↑ CJK — Chinese Japanese Korean characters

[1] CJK — Chinese Japanese Korean characters

[1]