Associate Content Tip of the Day 2 Sept 2007: HTML Special Characters

Basic HTML makes creating special and non-Latin alphabetic characters easy. These characters are created by using the “&” symbol followed by the HTML code for the character and terminated with a semi-colon. For example the Spanish enyay (n with a tilde above) in HTML is ñ (without the spaces).

Knowing just a little HTML can get you through some tough spots. Many web sites, like Associated Content and WordPress, support basic HTML. At AC, simply turn off the built-in editor and you can use some of the basic HTML tags and character codes.

Here is a brief, but not exhaustive list of some of the more common special characters.
" = "
& = &
< = &lt;
> = &gt;
¿ = &iquest;
À = &Agrave;
à = &agrave;
Á = &Aacute;
á = &aacute;
 = &Acirc;
â = &acirc;
à = &Atilde;
ã = &atilde;
Ä = &Auml;
ä = &auml;
Å = &Aring;
å = &aring;
Æ = &AElig;
æ = &aelig;
Ç = &Ccedil;
ç = &ccedil;
È = &Egrave;
è = &egrave;
É = &Eacute;
é = &eacute;
Ø = &Oslash;
ø = &oslash;
Ñ = &Ntilde;
ñ = &ntilde;
¼ = &frac14;
½ = &frac12;
¾ = &frac34;
¢ = &cent;

For a more complex tag you can combine the the letters “TM” with the code to superscript and make the font smaller:

<FONT SIZE=”-1″><SUP>TM</SUP></FONT> which renders ^TM

You can find the complete list of codes for special characters at WebMonkey