HTML Comments & Characters

&name;

Examples

<p>Copyright &copy; 2026 Codementrix</p>

<p>HTML &amp; CSS</p>

<p>Price: &euro;99</p>

<p>This value is &lt; 100</p>

The browser displays the corresponding characters:

• Copyright © 2026 Codementrix
• HTML & CSS
• Price: €99
• This value is less than 100

Why the Semicolon Matters

Use the semicolon after a named character reference whenever possible. Some references have historical parsing rules that allow omission in certain contexts, but the result can be ambiguous or change depending on what follows.

Prefer:

©

When writing HTML that should display the literal text ©, the ampersand itself must be represented as a character reference.

For normal HTML content, write the actual character reference directly in the source:

<p>Copyright &copy; 2026</p>

This renders the copyright symbol rather than the literal sequence of characters ©.

5. Decimal and Hexadecimal Numeric Character References

Unicode characters can also be represented by numeric character references. This is useful when you do not know a named reference or when you want to identify a character by its Unicode code point.

Decimal Syntax

&#NUMBER;

Example:

<p>Copyright &#169; 2026</p>

The decimal number 169 corresponds to the copyright symbol ©.

Hexadecimal Syntax

&#xHEX_NUMBER;

Example: