## HTML ISO-8859-1 Reference Manual
Modern web browsers support a variety of character sets to display text correctly:
* **ASCII Character Set:** The foundational character encoding standard.
* **Standard ISO Character Sets:** Extended character sets covering regional alphabets.
* **Mathematical Symbols, Greek Letters, and Special Symbols:** Entities used for scientific and specialized notation.
---
## What is ISO-8859-1?
**ISO-8859-1** (also known as Latin-1) is a standard character encoding for Western European languages. Historically, it has been the default character set for many web browsers and protocols.
* **Lower Range (Codes 1 to 127):** This range is identical to the original ASCII character set, which includes numbers (0-9), uppercase and lowercase English letters, and basic punctuation marks.
* **Upper Range (Codes 160 to 255):** This range contains special characters, symbols, and accented characters used in Western European languages. Every character in this range has a corresponding HTML entity name and entity number.
While modern keyboards and operating systems allow you to type many of these symbols directly, HTML entities provide a reliable way to insert characters that are difficult to type or might be misinterpreted by the browser.
---
## HTML Reserved Characters
HTML and XHTML reserve certain characters (such as `<`, `>`, and `&`) because browsers interpret them as markup tags. To display these characters as text, you must use their corresponding HTML entities.
The table below lists the essential reserved characters and common symbols from the ISO-8859-1 range (160–191):
| Character | Entity Number | Entity Name | Description |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :--- |
| ` ` | ` ` | ` ` | Non-breaking space |
| ¡ | `¡` | `¡` | Inverted exclamation mark |
| ¢ | `¢` | `¢` | Cent sign |
| £ | `£` | `£` | Pound sign |
| ¤ | `¤` | `¤` | Currency sign |
| ¥ | `¥` | `¥` | Yen / Renminbi sign |
| ¦ | `¦` | `¦` | Broken vertical bar |
| § | `§` | `§` | Section sign |
| ¨ | `¨` | `¨` | Spacing diaeresis |
| © | `©` | `©` | Copyright symbol |
| ª | `ª` | `ª` | Feminine ordinal indicator |
| « | `«` | `«` | Left-pointing double angle quotation mark |
| ¬ | `¬` | `¬` | Negation / Not sign |
| | `` | `` | Soft hyphen |
| ® | `®` | `®` | Registered trademark |
| ¯ | `¯` | `¯` | Spacing macron |
| ° | `°` | `°` | Degree sign |
| ± | `±` | `±` | Plus-or-minus sign |
| ² | `²` | `²` | Superscript two |
| ³ | `³` | `³` | Superscript three |
| ´ | `´` | `´` | Spacing acute accent |
| µ | `µ` | `µ` | Micro sign |
| ¶ | `¶` | `¶` | Paragraph sign / Pilcrow |
| · | `·` | `·` | Middle dot |
| ¸ | `¸` | `¸` | Spacing cedilla |
| ¹ | `¹` | `¹` | Superscript one |
| º | `º` | `º` | Masculine ordinal indicator |
| » | `»` | `»` | Right-pointing double angle quotation mark |
| ¼ | `¼` | `¼` | Vulgar fraction one quarter |
| ½ | `½` | `½` | Vulgar fraction one half |
| ¾ | `¾` | `¾` | Vulgar fraction three quarters |
| ¿ | `¿` | `¿` | Inverted question mark |
---
## ISO-8859-1 Character Entities (Accented Letters & Symbols)
The following table lists the character entities in the ISO-8859-1 range (192–255), which primarily consist of accented letters used in Western European languages:
| Character | Entity Number | Entity Name | Description |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :--- |
| À | `À` | `À` | Capital letter A with grave accent |
| Á | `Á` | `Á` | Capital letter A with acute accent |
| Â | `Â` | `Â` | Capital letter A with circumflex |
| Ã | `Ã` | `Ã` | Capital letter A with tilde |
| Ä | `Ä` | `Ä` | Capital letter A with umlaut |
| Å | `Å` | `Å` | Capital letter A with ring above |
| Æ | `Æ` | `Æ` | Capital letter AE |
| Ç | `Ç` | `Ç` | Capital letter C with cedilla |
| È | `È` | `È` | Capital letter E with grave accent |
| É | `É` | `É` | Capital letter E with acute accent |
| Ê | `Ê` | `Ê` | Capital letter E with circumflex |
| Ë | `Ë` | `Ë` | Capital letter E with umlaut |
| Ì | `Ì` | `Ì` | Capital letter I with grave accent |
| Í | `Í` | `Í` | Capital letter I with acute accent |
| Î | `Î` | `Î` | Capital letter I with circumflex |
| Ï | `Ï` | `Ï` | Capital letter I with umlaut |
| Ð | `Ð` | `Ð` | Capital letter Eth (Icelandic) |
| Ñ | `Ñ` | `Ñ` | Capital letter N with tilde |
| Ò | `Ò` | `Ò` | Capital letter O with grave accent |
| Ó | `Ó` | `Ó` | Capital letter O with acute accent |
| Ô | `Ô` | `Ô` | Capital letter O with circumflex |
| Õ | `Õ` | `Õ` | Capital letter O with tilde |
| Ö | `Ö` | `Ö` | Capital letter O with umlaut |
| × | `×` | `×` | Multiplication sign |
| Ø | `Ø` | `Ø` | Capital letter O with slash |
| Ù | `Ù` | `Ù` | Capital letter U with grave accent |
| Ú | `Ú` | `Ú` | Capital letter U with acute accent |
| Û | `Û` | `Û` | Capital letter U with circumflex |
| Ü | `Ü` | `Ü` | Capital letter U with umlaut |
| Ý | `Ý` | `Ý` | Capital letter Y with acute accent |
| Þ | `Þ` | `Þ` | Capital letter Thorn (Icelandic) |
| ß | `ß` | `ß` | Small letter sharp s (German) |
| à | `à` | `à` | Small letter a with grave accent |
| á | `á` | `á` | Small letter a with acute accent |
| â | `â` | `â` | Small letter a with circumflex |
| ã | `ã` | `ã` | Small letter a with tilde |
| ä | `ä` | `ä` | Small letter a with umlaut |
| å | `å` | `å` | Small letter a with ring above |
| æ | `æ` | `æ` | Small letter ae |
| ç | `ç` | `ç` | Small letter c with cedilla |
| è | `è` | `è` | Small letter e with grave accent |
| é | `é` | `é` | Small letter e with acute accent |
| ê | `ê` | `ê` | Small letter e with circumflex |
| ë | `ë` | `ë` | Small letter e with umlaut |
| ì | `ì` | `ì` | Small letter i with grave accent |
| í | `í` | `í` | Small letter i with acute accent |
| î | `î` | `î` | Small letter i with circumflex |
| ï | `ï` | `ï` | Small letter i with umlaut |
| ð | `ð` | `ð` | Small letter eth (Icelandic) |
| ñ | `ñ` | `ñ` | Small letter n with tilde |
| ò | `ò` | `ò` | Small letter o with grave accent |
| ó | `ó` | `ó` | Small letter o with acute accent |
| ô | `ô` | `ô` | Small letter o with circumflex |
| õ | `õ` | `õ` | Small letter o with tilde |
| ö | `ö` | `ö` | Small letter o with umlaut |
| ÷ | `÷` | `÷` | Division sign |
| ø | `ø` | `ø` | Small letter o with slash |
| ù | `ù` | `ù` | Small letter u with grave accent |
| ú | `ú` | `ú` | Small letter u with acute accent |
| û | `û` | `û` | Small letter u with circumflex |
| ü | `ü` | `ü` | Small letter u with umlaut |
| ý | `ý` | `ý` | Small letter y with acute accent |
| þ | `þ` | `&thousand;` | Small letter thorn (Icelandic) |
| ÿ | `ÿ` | `ÿ` | Small letter y with umlaut |
---
## Syntax and Usage
To display any of these characters in your HTML document, you can use either the **Entity Name** or the **Entity Number**.
### Entity Name Syntax
```html
&entity_name;
```
*Example:* `©` displays as **©**
### Entity Number Syntax
```html
&#entity_number;
```
*Example:* `©` displays as **©**
---
## Code Examples
Here is a practical example of how to implement these entities in an HTML document:
```html
HTML Entities Example
Currency and Math Examples
The price of the item is £49.99 (or £49.99).
Math equation: 10 ÷ 2 × 5 = 25
Accented Characters
The word "café" uses an acute accent over the 'e'.
The German letter ß is called a "sharp s" or "Eszett".
Legal and Copyright Symbols
© 2026 YouTip. All Rights Reserved. ®
```
---
## Considerations and Best Practices
1. **Entity Names vs. Numbers:**
* **Entity Names** are easier to remember and make the source code more readable (e.g., `©` is instantly recognizable compared to `©`).
* **Entity Numbers** have better compatibility with older or highly specialized browsers that might not fully support the entire list of entity names.
2. **Case Sensitivity:**
* Entity names are strictly case-sensitive. For example, `É` produces an uppercase **É**, while `é` produces a lowercase **é**.
3. **Modern Encoding (UTF-8):**
* While ISO-8859-1 was the historical default, modern web development standardizes on **UTF-8**. If your document is saved and served as UTF-8 (declared via `
`), you can type these characters directly into your editor without using entities, except for HTML reserved characters like `<`, `>`, and `&`.
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