Unicode Symbol Table

Browse and copy Unicode symbols, arrows, math operators, emoji, and special characters

What is Unicode Table Reference?

Unicode Table Reference is a searchable catalog of Unicode characters organized by block, category, and code point. For each character it shows the glyph, official Unicode name, code point (U+XXXX), HTML entity, UTF-8 byte sequence, and JavaScript escape — making it the single reference you need when working with special characters in web development.

Unicode 15.1 defines over 149,000 characters across 161 scripts, covering every living writing system and many historical ones, plus mathematical symbols, currency signs, emoji, and technical characters. Developers encounter Unicode constantly: sanitizing user input, building internationalized applications, generating correct HTML entities, and debugging encoding issues.

Common use cases include finding the correct entity for a typographic apostrophe (U+2019, ’) instead of ASCII apostrophe (U+0027), locating arrows and mathematical operators without copy-pasting from other documents, and identifying mystery characters that appear as boxes or question marks in rendered text by pasting them into the search field.

How to Use

  1. Type any character, name, or code point (e.g., U+2603 or 'snowman') in the search box.
  2. Browse by Unicode block (Latin, Greek, Arrows, Mathematical Operators, etc.) using the category menu.
  3. Click any character row to copy its value, HTML entity, or JavaScript escape to your clipboard.
  4. Use the 'Show only printable' toggle to hide control characters and format characters.
  5. Filter by category (letter, mark, number, punctuation, symbol, separator) to narrow results.

Examples

Search: 'arrow'

Result: Returns 112 arrow characters including left/right/up/down arrows, double arrows, curved arrows, and mathematical arrows

Search: U+00A9

Result: Shows the copyright sign © with entity © and JavaScript escape \u00A9

Paste a mystery character

Result: Instantly identifies the Unicode name, block, and code point of any character you paste into the search

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between U+2019 and U+0027?

U+0027 is the ASCII apostrophe — a vertical straight tick. U+2019 is the right single quotation mark — a curly apostrophe. Typography guidelines recommend U+2019 in prose; code and attribute values should use U+0027 to avoid parsing issues.

How do I insert a Unicode character in HTML?

Use a named entity (©), a decimal entity (©), or a hex entity (©). All three produce the same glyph. Named entities only exist for a subset of characters; hex entities work for any Unicode code point.

What causes garbled text (mojibake)?

Mojibake occurs when text encoded in one encoding (e.g., UTF-8) is decoded as a different encoding (e.g., Latin-1). The bytes are the same but interpreted differently. Always specify UTF-8 in your HTML meta charset tag and database collation.

What is a BOM and should I include it?

The Byte Order Mark (U+FEFF) at the start of a file identifies it as UTF-8 to some parsers. HTML5 does not require it and some parsers treat it as whitespace. Best practice for UTF-8 HTML files: omit the BOM.

How do I match Unicode letters in a regex?

In JavaScript, use the Unicode property escape: /\p{Letter}/u. In Python 3, \w matches Unicode word characters by default. In older environments, you may need to enumerate character ranges manually.

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