Potentially confusing or technically problematic characters |
|
Category
|
coded form (direct form )
|
Notes
|
Miscellany
|
& (& ) < (< ) > (> ) [ ([ ) ] (] ) ' (' ) | (| )
|
Use these characters directly in general, unless they interfere with HTML or wiki markup. Apostrophes and pipe symbols can alternatively be coded with {{'}} and {{!}} or {{pipe}} . See also character-substitution templates and WP:ENCODE.
|
Greek letters
|
Α (Α ) Β (Β ) Ε (Ε ) Ζ (Ζ ) Η (Η ) Ι (Ι ) Κ (Κ ) Μ (Μ ) Ν (Ν ) Ο (Ο ) Ρ (Ρ ) Τ (Τ ) Υ (Υ ) Χ (Χ ) κ (κ ) ο (ο ) ρ (ρ )
|
In isolation, use coded forms to avoid confusion with similar-looking Latin letters; in a Greek word or text, use the direct characters.
|
Quotes
|
‘ (‘ ) ’ (’ ) ‚ (‚ ) “ (“ ) ” (” ) „ („ ) ´ (´ ) ′ (′ ) ″ (″ ) ` (` )
|
Can be confused with straight quotes (" and ' ), commas, and with one another. MOS:STRAIGHT generally requires conversion to straight quotes, except when discussing the characters themselves or sometimes with non-English languages. See next row for prime characters.
|
Apostrophe-like
|
' ` ′ ´ ʻ ʼ ʽ ʾ ʼ ʽ ʻ ʼ
|
|
Dashes, minuses, hyphens
|
– (– ) — (— ) − (− ) - (hyphen) ­ (soft hyphen)
|
Can be confused with one another. For dashes and minuses, both forms are used (as well as {{endash}} and {{emdash}} ). Soft hyphens should always be coded with the HTML entity or template. Plain hyphens are usually direct, though at times {{hyphen}} may be preferable (e.g. Help:CS1#Pages). See MOS:DASH, MOS:SHY, and MOS:MINUS for guidelines.
|
Whitespace
|
        ‍ ‌
|
In direct form these are nearly impossible to distinguish from a normal space. See also MOS:NBSP.
|
Non-printing
|
‎ ‏
|
In direct form these are nearly impossible to identify. See MOS:RTL.
|
Mathematics-related
|
∧ (∧ ) ∨ (∨ ) ⟨ (⟨ ) ⟩ (⟩ )
|
Can be confused with x ^ v < > . In some cases TeX markup is preferred to Unicode characters; see MOS:FORMULA. Use {{angbr}} instead of ⟨ ) / (⟩ )
|
Dots
|
⋅ (⋅ ) · (· ) • (• )
|
Can be confused with one another. Interpuncts (· ) are common in horizontal lists and to indicate syllables in words. Multiplication dots (⋅ ) are used for math. In practice, the dots are used directly instead of the HTML entities.
|