Character Entities

Character Entities

Some characters have a special meaning in HTML, like the less than sign (<) that defines the start of an HTML tag. If we want the browser to actually display these characters we must insert character entities in the HTML source.

A character entity has three parts: an ampersand (&), an entity name or a # and an entity number, and finally a semicolon (;).

To display a less than sign in an HTML document we must write: < or <

The advantage of using a name instead of a number is that a name is easier to remember. The disadvantage is that not all browsers support the newest entity names, while the support for entity numbers is very good in almost all browsers.

Note that the entities are case sensitive. 

Non-breaking Space

The most common character entity in HTML is the non-breaking space.

Normally HTML will truncate spaces in your text. If you write 10 spaces in your text HTML will remove 9 of them. To add spaces to your text, use the   character entity.

Most Common Character Entities

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
	non-breaking space
<	less than	<	<
>	greater than	>	>
&	ampersand	&	&
"	quotation mark	"	"
'	apostrophe	' (does not work in IE)	'

Additional Commonly Used Character Entities

Result	Description	Entity Name	Entity Number
¢	cent	¢	¢
£	pound	£	£
¥	yen	¥	¥
§	section	§	§
©	copyright	©	©
®	registered trademark	®	®
×	multiplication	×	×
÷	division	÷	÷

The Anchor Tag and the Href Attribute

HTML uses the (anchor) tag to create a link to another document.

An anchor can point to any resource on the Web: an HTML page, an image, a sound file, a movie, etc.

The syntax of creating an anchor: 

Text to be displayed

The tag is used to create an anchor to link, the href attribute is used to address the document to link to, and the words between the open and close of the anchor tag will be displayed as a hyperlink.

This anchor defines a link to EEE 111 webpage:

Visit EEE 111

The line above will look like this in a browser:

Visit EEE 111

The Target Attribute

With the target attribute, you can define where the linked document will be opened.

The line below will open the document in a new browser window:

Visit EEE 111

The Anchor Tag and the Name Attribute

The name attribute is used to create a named anchor. When using named anchors we can create links that can jump directly into a specific section on a page, instead of letting the user scroll around to find what he/she is looking for.

Below is the syntax of a named anchor:

Text to be displayed

The name attribute is used to create a named anchor. The name of the anchor can be any text you care to use.

The line below defines a named anchor:

Bottom of the page

You should notice that a named anchor is not displayed in a special way.

To link directly to the "down" section, add a # sign and the name of the anchor to the end of a URL, like this:

href="http://faraday.ee.emu.edu.tr/eee111#down">Jump to down section

A hyperlink to the Useful Tips Section from WITHIN the file "firstpage.html" will look like this: 

Down is here