Perhaps it isn’t too likely that many web designers would need to write out mathematical equations in their web content. But it may be surprising how the need for math-related characters can pop up in situations that aren’t necessarily math heavy. You may need the degree symbol to write the temperature. Or maybe you’d need to use fractions for measures of ingredients in a recipe?
Certain letters or symbols can be used to get around needing some of these. For example, you can use an “x” for multiplication or a “/” for division. But these can be confusing, especially in a block of text. It’s much more obvious to use the entities × (×) and ÷ (÷).
Here is a table of math symbols that may be useful. You don’t need to have them all dedicated to memory, as a quick web search for ampersand notation characters will easily get you a list of everything you need. Still, have a look over these examples to get a better idea of what types of symbols are available.
| Name | Notation | Symbol |
|---|---|---|
| less than | < | < |
| greater than | > | > |
| less than or equal to | ≤ | ≤ |
| greater than or equal to | ≥ | ≥ |
| degree | ° | ° |
| one half | ½ | ½ |
| one fourth | ¼ | ¼ |
| three fourths | ¾ | ¾ |
| times | × | × |
| divide | ÷ | ÷ |
| plus or minus | ± | ± |
| Name | Notation | Symbol |
|---|---|---|
| theta | θ | θ |
| pi | π | π |
| Sigma | Σ | Σ |
| similar | ∼ | ∼ |
| approximate | ≈ | ≈ |
| congruent | ≅ | ≅ |
| not equal to | ≠ | ≠ |
| angle | ∠ | ∠ |
| square root | √ | √ |
| infinity | ∞ | ∞ |
| therefore | ∴ | ∴ |
