HTML Entities

To replace the reserved characters in HTML, as well as to replace the characters that are not present on a keyboard, the HTML character entities are used. It thus provides a wide range of characters to add icons, geometric shapes, mathematical operators, etc. To use an entity in an HTML document one can either use it by name or by a numerical character reference. The ampersand (&) and the semicolon (;) symbols are used to start and end an entity respectively.

Syntax:

&entity_name;

OR 

&#entity_number;

Advantages of using Entity Name:

It is easy to remember an entity name.

Disadvantages of using Entity Name:

All entity names may not be supported by every browser. However, the support for the entity numbers is good.

Popular HTML Character Entities:

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
	non-breaking space
<	less than	<	<
>	greater than	>	>
&	ampersand	&	&
“	double quotation mark	"	"
‘	single quotation mark (apostrophe)	'	'
¢	cent	¢	¢
£	pound	£	£
¥	yen	¥	¥
€	Euro	€	€
©	copyright	©	©
®	registered trademark	®	&#174

Example:

<!DOCTYPE html>  
<html>    
<body>  
<p>&#34;HELLO WORLD!!&#34;</p>  
<p>&#60;HELLO WORLD!!&#62;</p>  
</body>  
</html>

Explanation:

In the above example, we used the Entity Number to replace the reserved character in HTML.

HTML Diacritical Marks:

The “glyph” added to the HTML letters to the top or below the letters, inside a letter, or between two letters, is called the HTML diacritical mark. The HTML Diacritical marks, like grave ( ̀) and acute ( ́) are often known as accents. Some of the HTML diacritical marks are:

Mark	Character	Construct	Result
̀	a	à	à
́	a	á	á
̂	a	â	â
̃	a	ã	ã
̀	O	Ò	Ò
́	O	Ó	Ó
̂	O	Ô	Ô
̃	O	Õ	Õ