What is a Unicode character?

Unicode gives every character in every writing system a number, called a code point, written as U+ followed by hex digits. A is U+0041, € is U+20AC, and 😀 is U+1F600. Each character also has an official name, such as EURO SIGN, and belongs to a block: a range of code points that groups related characters, such as Basic Latin, Cyrillic, or Emoticons. Unicode has room for 1,114,112 code points, and more than 150,000 of them are assigned to characters.

Tool description

This tool lets you browse the whole Unicode character set, one block at a time, like a character map. Pick a block to list its characters in a table, or search by name, code point, or pasted text. Click a character to see its details and copy it or one of its encodings. Use it to find a symbol you can't type, identify an unknown character, or look up the escape code for your HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.

Features

  • Browse every Unicode block, from Basic Latin to the private use areas
  • Search by words in the name, such as "arrow left" or "grinning face"
  • Jump to a code point written as U+20AC, 0x20AC, \u20AC, \u{1F600}, €, or €
  • Paste text to list each character in it, including invisible ones
  • Shows the name, aliases, block, general category, and script of each character
  • Copy the character, its UTF-8 bytes, UTF-16 code units, and URL encoding
  • Copy the HTML entity, with the named entity when there is one, and CSS and JavaScript escapes

How it works

The character names, blocks, categories, and scripts come from the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0. Names that Unicode derives from the code point, such as CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-4E00 and the Hangul syllables, are built the same way. Control characters have no name of their own, so the tool shows their alias, such as LINE FEED. Code points without a character get a label, such as <reserved-0378> or <private-use-E000>. Characters without a visible glyph, such as spaces and control characters, show their abbreviation, and combining marks are drawn on a dotted circle. Everything runs in your browser.

Tips

  • A search word matches the start of a word in the name, so "arr" finds every arrow.
  • Paste a string that looks wrong to find hidden characters, such as a zero-width space (ZWSP) or a non-breaking space (NBSP).
  • If a character shows as an empty box, the fonts on your device don't include it. The name and codes are still correct.
  • In CSS, end the escape with a space when the next character is a hex digit, as in content: "\20AC 5".