HTML 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. To display a less than sign (<) we must write: < or <

Character entities are used to display reserved characters in HTML. A character entity looks like this: &entity_name; OR &#entity_number;

• A commonly used entity in HTML is the non-breaking space:

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

• Two words separated 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

  10 km/h

  10 PM

• Another common use of the non-breaking space is to prevent browsers from truncating (to make something shorter, especially by cutting off the top and end) spaces in HTML pages.

• If you write 10 spaces in your text, the browser will remove 9 of them. To add real spaces to your text, you can use the character entity.