Special Text / Typographical Symbols or Characters

A variety of different typographical symbols are used in text, manuscripts and many other areas.

Letter & Symbols Includes:
Greek alphabet     Mathematical symbols     Mathematical constants     Typographical symbols    

There are many special, symbols and operators that are used in typography, general written and typed text beyond the straightforward characters found on a QWERTY keyboard.

Many of these typographical symbols and some special symbols are used to denote particular formats and have different means, enabling text to be formatted so that the context is understood.

Below is a list, table or chart of some of the more commonly used special symbols and characters that can be found.


Symbols Name
Meaning		 Explanation / example
of Typographical Symbols
‘ Left single quote Used in typography, books magazines, etc.
’ Right single quote Used in typography, books, magazines, etc.
“ Left double quote Used in typography, books magazines, etc.
” Right double quote Used in typography, books, magazines, etc.
† Dagger The dagger is most comonly used in typography to indicate a footnote, when the more usually used asterisk has already been used.
‡ Double dagger The double dagger is most commonly used in typography to indicate a footnote, when the asterisk and single dagger have already been used.
‰ Per mil sign A per mil, per mille, or per mill is a tenth of a percent or one part per thousand, i.e. 1/1000. It has a Latin derivation and literally means 'for (every) thousand'
™ Trade mark Used to indicate that the preceding word or phrase is a trade mark of a company. It is a mark used to promote or brand goods, but not one that is registered.
® Registered trade mark This form of trademark is registered and the owner is able to commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark.
© Copyright By using the © symbol, the owner asserts his ownership of the material. Generally it is used in the form: © 2012 Fred Bloggs
℠ Service mark The Service Mark, ℠ is a symbol commonly used in the United States to provide notice of a service mark. This typographical symbol has some legal force, and is typically used for service marks not yet registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Once registered they use the registered trade mark sign, ®.
℗ Sound recording copyright The sound recording copyright typographical symbol, ℗ is used to indicate copyright in a sound recording (phonogram). The use of the symbol originated in United States copyright law and is now specified internationally in the Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms.
§ Section sign The section sign §, is also known as the 'double S' sectional symbol. It is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document. It is widely used within legal documents and contracts. It can sometimes be seen duplicated as §§, it is read as the plural "sections" (§§ 9 - 13),
¤ General currency sign The currency sign, ¤ is a character used in typography to denote a currency when the symbol for that particular currency is not available.
ª Female ordinal
º Male ordinal
« Left double angle quote Can be used instead of the double quote " or single quote ' .
» Right double angle quote Can be used instead of the double quote " or single quote ' .
‹ Left single angle quote Can be used instead of the double quote " or single quote ' .
› Right single angle quote Can be used instead of the double quote " or single quote ' .
¿ Inverted question mark The Inverted question, ¿ is a punctuation mark used to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences in written Spanish or other related languages.
¡ Inverted exclamation mark The Inverted exclamation mark, ¡ is a punctuation mark used in typography to begin interrogative and exclamatory sentences in written Spanish or other related languages.
Paragraph sign, pilcrow The paragraph sign ¶ is used in typography to indicate the end of a paragraph. It is normally not used in completed text. It is current widely used in word processing programmes in the page mark-up modes to mark the presence of a carriage return control character at the end of a paragraph.

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