HTML Entities

Reserved characters in HTML must be escaped with character entities

Some characters are reserved in HTML.

If you use the less than (<) or greater than (>) signs in your text, the browser might mix them with tags.

Character entities are used to display reserved characters in HTML.

A character entity looks like this:

OR

To display a less than sign (<) we must write: &lt; or &#60;

Non-breaking Space

A commonly used entity in HTML is the non-breaking space: &nbsp;

A non-breaking space is a space that will not break into a new line.

Two words seperated by a non-breaking space will stick together (not break into a new line). This is handy when breaking the words might be disruptive.

Examples:

• 10 km/h
• 10 PM

Another common use of the non-blocking space is to prevent browsers from truncating spaces in HTML pages.

If you write 10 spaces in your text, the browsers will remove 9 of them. To add real spaces to your text, you can use the &nbsp; entity.

Some Useful HTML Character Entities

Please note that entity names are case sensitive.