HTML ASCII Reference
ASCII was the first character set (encoding standard) used between computers on the Internet.
Both ISO-8859-1 (default in HTML 4.01) and UTF-8 (default in HTML5), are built on ASCII.
The ASCII Character Set
ASCII stands for the "American Standard Code for Information Interchange".
It was designed in the early 60's, as a standard character set for computers and electronic devices.
ASCII is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters.
It contains the numbers from 0-9, the upper and lower case English letters from A to Z, and some special characters.
The character sets used in modern computers, in HTML, and on the Internet, are all based on ASCII.
The following tables list the 128 ASCII characters and their equivalent number.
ASCII Printable Characters
Char | Number | Description |
---|---|---|
0 - 31 | Control characters (see below) | |
32 | spaceTry it | |
! | 33 | exclamation markTry it |
" | 34 | quotation markTry it |
# | 35 | number signTry it |
$ | 36 | dollar signTry it |
% | 37 | percent signTry it |
& | 38 | ampersandTry it |
' | 39 | apostropheTry it |
( | 40 | left parenthesisTry it |
) | 41 | right parenthesisTry it |
* | 42 | asteriskTry it |
+ | 43 | plus signTry it |
, | 44 | commaTry it |
- | 45 | hyphenTry it |
. | 46 | periodTry it |
/ | 47 | slashTry it |
0 | 48 | digit 0Try it |
1 | 49 | digit 1Try it |
2 | 50 | digit 2Try it |
3 | 51 | digit 3Try it |
4 | 52 | digit 4Try it |
5 | 53 | digit 5Try it |
6 | 54 | digit 6Try it |
7 | 55 | digit 7Try it |
8 | 56 | digit 8Try it |
9 | 57 | digit 9Try it |
: | 58 | colonTry it |
; | 59 | semicolonTry it |
< | 60 | less-thanTry it |
= | 61 | equals-toTry it |
> | 62 | greater-thanTry it |
? | 63 | question markTry it |
@ | 64 | at signTry it |
A | 65 | uppercase ATry it |
B | 66 | uppercase BTry it |
C | 67 | uppercase CTry it |
D | 68 | uppercase DTry it |
E | 69 | uppercase ETry it |
F | 70 | uppercase FTry it |
G | 71 | uppercase GTry it |
H | 72 | uppercase HTry it |
I | 73 | uppercase ITry it |
J | 74 | uppercase JTry it |
K | 75 | uppercase KTry it |
L | 76 | uppercase LTry it |
M | 77 | uppercase MTry it |
N | 78 | uppercase NTry it |
O | 79 | uppercase OTry it |
P | 80 | uppercase PTry it |
Q | 81 | uppercase QTry it |
R | 82 | uppercase RTry it |
S | 83 | uppercase STry it |
T | 84 | uppercase TTry it |
U | 85 | uppercase UTry it |
V | 86 | uppercase VTry it |
W | 87 | uppercase WTry it |
X | 88 | uppercase XTry it |
Y | 89 | uppercase YTry it |
Z | 90 | uppercase ZTry it |
[ | 91 | left square bracketTry it |
\ | 92 | backslashTry it |
] | 93 | right square bracketTry it |
^ | 94 | caretTry it |
_ | 95 | underscoreTry it |
` | 96 | grave accentTry it |
a | 97 | lowercase aTry it |
b | 98 | lowercase bTry it |
c | 99 | lowercase cTry it |
d | 100 | lowercase dTry it |
e | 101 | lowercase eTry it |
f | 102 | lowercase fTry it |
g | 103 | lowercase gTry it |
h | 104 | lowercase hTry it |
i | 105 | lowercase iTry it |
j | 106 | lowercase jTry it |
k | 107 | lowercase kTry it |
l | 108 | lowercase lTry it |
m | 109 | lowercase mTry it |
n | 110 | lowercase nTry it |
o | 111 | lowercase oTry it |
p | 112 | lowercase pTry it |
q | 113 | lowercase qTry it |
r | 114 | lowercase rTry it |
s | 115 | lowercase sTry it |
t | 116 | lowercase tTry it |
u | 117 | lowercase uTry it |
v | 118 | lowercase vTry it |
w | 119 | lowercase wTry it |
x | 120 | lowercase xTry it |
y | 121 | lowercase yTry it |
z | 122 | lowercase zTry it |
{ | 123 | left curly braceTry it |
| | 124 | vertical barTry it |
} | 125 | right curly braceTry it |
~ | 126 | tildeTry it |
ASCII Device Control Characters
The ASCII control characters (range 00-31, plus 127) were designed to control hardware devices.
Control characters (except horizontal tab, line feed, and carriage return) have nothing to do inside an HTML document.
Char | Number | Description |
---|---|---|
NUL | 00 | null character |
SOH | 01 | start of header |
STX | 02 | start of text |
ETX | 03 | end of text |
EOT | 04 | end of transmission |
ENQ | 05 | enquiry |
ACK | 06 | acknowledge |
BEL | 07 | bell (ring) |
BS | 08 | backspace |
HT | 09 | horizontal tab |
LF | 10 | line feed |
VT | 11 | vertical tab |
FF | 12 | form feed |
CR | 13 | carriage return |
SO | 14 | shift out |
SI | 15 | shift in |
DLE | 16 | data link escape |
DC1 | 17 | device control 1 |
DC2 | 18 | device control 2 |
DC3 | 19 | device control 3 |
DC4 | 20 | device control 4 |
NAK | 21 | negative acknowledge |
SYN | 22 | synchronize |
ETB | 23 | end transmission block |
CAN | 24 | cancel |
EM | 25 | end of medium |
SUB | 26 | substitute |
ESC | 27 | escape |
FS | 28 | file separator |
GS | 29 | group separator |
RS | 30 | record separator |
US | 31 | unit separator |
DEL | 127 | delete (rubout) |