Character references

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Four character entity references deserve special mention since they are frequently used to escape special characters:

• &lt; represents the < sign.
• &gt; represents the > sign.
• &amp; represents the & sign.
• &quot; represents the " mark.

The reason for using these character references is be able to display these symbols in the document without confusing the browser. This is because these characters have their own meaning within the Mark-up Language.

There are others which do not have any importance in the Mark-up but may be useful in documents.

• &pound; The pound sign £
• &euro; The Euro sign €
• &copy; The copyright symbol ©
• &deg; The degree symbol °
• &ndash; A normal dash/hyphen –
• &mdash; A medium dash/hyphen —
• &sup2; To the power of 2 (squared) ²

Another character which is worth special mention is

• &nbsp; A non breaking space  

Why would we need this?

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© 2003 Ashley Preston