HTML Entities Cheat Sheet: Complete Reference for 2026

HTML entities are special codes that display reserved characters and symbols in web pages. If you’ve ever tried to write a < symbol in HTML and watched your page break, you already know why entities exist. This cheat sheet covers every entity you’ll actually use, organized for quick reference.

What Are HTML Entities?

Certain characters have special meaning in HTML. The browser interprets < as the start of an HTML tag, & as the start of an entity, and > as the end of a tag. To display these characters as visible text instead, you replace them with HTML entities.

An HTML entity starts with an ampersand (&) and ends with a semicolon (;). Between them is either a named reference (like &) or a numeric code (like &).

Essential HTML Entities (Must Know)

These five entities are required for writing valid HTML. Memorize them:

Spacing & Invisible Characters

Typography & Punctuation

Currency Symbols

Math & Technical Symbols

Common Symbols & Arrows

Named vs Numeric Entities: Which to Use

Named entities (like &) are easier to read and remember. Use them when available. Numeric entities (like &) work for any Unicode character, even those without named references. Use numeric entities when you need obscure symbols or want maximum compatibility with older parsers.

There’s also a hexadecimal form: & is equivalent to &. Hex codes map directly to Unicode code points, making them useful if you’re looking up characters in Unicode charts.

When to Use HTML Entities

• Always encode &, <, >, and quotes inside HTML attributes.
• Use entities for special typography like em dashes, curly quotes, and non-breaking spaces.
• Use entities when displaying code examples that contain HTML tags.
• Skip entities for standard Unicode characters if your document uses UTF-8 encoding (which it should). You can type accented characters like é directly.

When working with HTML that contains many entities, a formatter helps you spot errors and keep your code readable. The Tools Oasis HTML Formatter beautifies your markup so you can see exactly where entities are used and whether they’re correctly closed.