Find a symbol, an arrow, a currency sign or an accented letter by name, and copy it with one click. Every character also shows its code point, its HTML entity and how to type it yourself.
How to use it
Type part of a name in the search box, such as arrow, euro, degree or e acute, or pick a group. Click a character to copy it to your clipboard, then paste it wherever you need it. The panel under the grid shows the details of the last character you picked.
Typing Unicode characters yourself
Every character has a code point, written like U+00E9. Once you know it, you can type the character without this page:
- Microsoft Word on Windows. Type the code without the U+ (for example 00E9) and press Alt+X. Word turns it into the character.
- Mac. Add the Unicode Hex Input keyboard in System Settings, under Keyboard, Input Sources. Switch to it, hold Option and type the four digits.
- Linux. In most desktops, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type the code and press Enter or Space.
- Web pages. In HTML, write the entity shown under each character, such as é or é.
Questions
What is Unicode?
Unicode is the standard that gives every character, in every writing system, its own number. That is what lets a symbol typed on one computer show up as the same symbol on another.
Why does a character show as an empty box?
The font on that device has no drawing for it. The character is still there; it will show on devices whose fonts include it.
Which characters are included?
The ones people look for most: punctuation and typographic marks, accented Latin letters, Greek letters, currency signs, arrows, math symbols, shapes, box drawing and common symbols. Emoji are not included.
What happened to CatchChar?
CatchChar was a small Windows program for inserting special characters. It is no longer offered. This page does the same job in any browser, on any computer.