Some of you who subscribe to my blog have bogs of your own. So perhaps you would be interested in some easy to use html techniques to make your blogs visually interesting. This is a post to wish you a happy 2012, and includes a tutorial about adding special characters to your blogs.
✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✓ ✔ ✕
✤ Sometimes you write an extra special post and you want to call attention to it. You can make it stand out visually by using HTML special characters called entities.
✤ These characters don’t appear on your keyboard but most browsers will render them on your screen.
On this page, Bruce Johnson shows ones that seem to be mostly the same between the two.
✤ On WordPress.com, most html coding won’t work in your blog title, but entity codes will!
✤ That means you can use stars, arrows, zodiac symbols, circled numbers, music notes, fractions…
✤ You don’t even need to use the HTML editor to use these characters! Go to one of the websites shown on this post to find a symbol you would like to use. The code you want to use looks like this:
&#NUMBER;
✤ Copy the complete code, then paste it into your post. You don’t even have to switch to the HTML editor!
When you save the draft, voilá, your special character will appear.
✤ You can use these special characters in text widges and titles too. Have fun!
✩ ✪ ✫ ✬ ✭ ✮ ✯ ✰ And never brought to mind? ✰ ✯ ✮ ✭ ✬ ✫ ✪ ✩
❃ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❇ ❈ ❉ Should old acquaintance be forgot, ❉ ❈ ❇ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❃
♩ ♬ ♪ ♩ ♫ ♩ ♬ And old long since! ♬ ♩ ♫ ♩ ♪ ♬ ♩
❃ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❈And there’s a hand my trusty friend!❈ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❃
❃ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❇ ❈ ❉ And give us a hand o’ thine! ❉ ❈ ❇ ❆ ❅ ❄ ❃
✩ ✪ ✫ ✬ ✭ ✮ ✯ ✰ And we’ll take a right good-will draught, ✰ ✯ ✮ ✭ ✬ ✫ ✪ ✩
✩ ✪ ✫ ✬ ✭ ✮ ✯ ✰ for auld lang syne. ✰ ✯ ✮ ✭ ✬ ✫ ✪ ✩
❺
❹
❸
❷
☮ Happy New Year! ☮
✤ ☛ Some of the codes I used ☚
☛ Some of the codes I used ☚
✩ — ✩ — Stress outlined white star
✪ — ✪ — Circled white star
✫ — ✫ — Open center black star
✬ — ✬ — Black center white star
✭ — ✭ — Outlined black star
✮ — ✮ — Heavy outlined black star
✯ — ✯ — Pinwheel star
✰ — ✰ — Shadowed white star
❃ — ❃ — Heavy teardrop spoked pinwheel asterisk
❄ — ❄ — Snowflake
❅ — ❅ — Tight trifoliate snowflake
❆ — ❆ — HEeavy chevron snowflake
❇ — ❇ — Sparkle
❈ — ❈ — Heavy sparkle
❉ — ❉ — Balloon-spoked asterisk
☮ — ☮ — Peace symbol
♩ — ♩ — Quarter note
♪ — ♪ — Eighth note
♫ — ♫ — Beamed eighth notes
♬ — ♬ — Beamed sixteenth notes
✤ Some sites to find special character entities:
music symbols http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=music
(odd) fractions and roman numerals http://theorem.ca/~mvcorks/cgi-bin/unicode.pl.cgi?start=2150&end=218F
dingbats http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=dingb
weather and meteorology http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=meteo
signs of the zodiac http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=zodia
a whole variety of codes http://theorem.ca/~mvcorks/code/charsets/auto.html
Tess's Japanese Kitchen 
Hi Tess,
This is a great post! We are seeing more and more fancy characters in blogging and this is a cool resource post. :)
Have a Happy New Year, Tess and many more hereafter.
Hi timethief,
Sorry for the miscommunication. This is really some fun stuff, though it could be easily misused. Even so, there are legitimate uses for the special characters so even though I didn’t make it as a guest poster on your blog, I think you might recommend this post on appropriate occasions.
Accept my best wishes for a good, sweet, happy new 2012!
Anytime you want to sublmit a guest post I will welcome it Tess. :)
Yes. Thank you.
Can you see the special characters in this post? What browsers do you use? Which operating system?
A concern of mine is that I’ve seen this does not work in all browsers/operating systems/preferences…
Hi Tess,
I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Due to my mother’s death and the family situation ie. we are in mourning I have temporarily stopped all email notifications for all blogging stuff. I am paying attention to my personal email address so I keep in touch with family but don’t have time to keep pace with the blogging email load as well.
I am using Firefox 9.0.1 and I just tried IE8 as well. The display is good in both. Have you tried using http://browsershots.org ? It’s a free browser compatibility testing site.
Thanks for the link. I’d forgotten about that!
It’s been ten months since my father died and things still come up… it has brought us siblings closer to each other, the importance of family, love, time spent together. Take good care of yourself.
My siblings and I are very close. I actually raised the youngest kids in our family so to them I’m a mother replacement. I’m so tired Tess. I just want to crawl into a cave for a couple of weeks and rest but they need me and I will always be there for them when they need me. That’s my role. It’s the promise I made to my parents and they are both gone now. I do not break promises. Soon they will be less needy of my time and then I will rest.
Oh dearheart! that is why I said to take care of yourself.
Perhaps even ask your siblings for some comfort? I don’t really know you, but I’ve learned that people who are hurting often respond to an opportunity to provide a little help to others: to feel competent, useful, valued, to distract from their own sorrow, to show they care and are not just a burden.
I’ll just bite my big sister advise person and simply give you a virtual internet hug:
{{{{[[[[((((♥ timethief) ♥)))]]]]}}}}
I can not see them neither from opera nor firefox. why?
I’m not sure. I can see them in Safari and Firefox. What can you see in this link:
http://brucejohnson.ca/HTMLCharacters3.html
This link shows a table containing four columns after a column in which written 10276,10277…
In the other four columns there is a box in each having written 28 24 vertically. 28 25 for second and so on.
However the characters in the link http://brucejohnson.ca/SpecialCharacters.html#regular are visible to me.
Can you take a screenshot. This is strange.
♪ ♫ except these two all are seen in the same way I told you, with their specific code 26 68, 28 69 vertically and enclosed in a box.
Opera just shows empty boxes.
Screenshot? How to take it?
Try one of these, then upload it to one of your blogs, give me a link so I can see it.
http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows
http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Mac-OS-X
I made a screenshot but I was unable to upload that one because of that file format.
It says that, “Sorry this file can not be uploaded because of security reasons”.(This happened with both uploaders)
I ignored the uploader and simply copy and paste it to the post. I could see the file in the editor. But when I published that one, it was not visible and there was only a distorted image was there.
However I’ll try to send you the shot via mail.
(Now at least I can take a screen shot without any trouble :) thanks)
Thanks, I got it and saved it as a jpeg. Now I see what you mean.
You can see 2 different music notes, but not the others. I wonder if you can see only those entities posted in my first link. Specifically this part of his page:
http://brucejohnson.ca/SpecialCharacters.html#unclassified
I did a little research and found that some sites recommend you set your font preferences to either Lucinda Grande or Times (or maybe Times New Roman??) because those 2 fonts have the entities coded.
In Safari, go to Preferences—>Appearance—>and select
In Firefox, go to Preferences—>Content—>Default font
I don’t have Opera or Chrome.
If that helps, let me know! If not, then using these cool special characters really is not so good.
Finally got to reading this post… so cool! Loved it!
Sally,
Thanks. Can you see the special characters? On macs with OSX on Safari and Firefox I can see them but I don’t know if there is a problem with other operating systems/browsers. What sort of computer are you using, and which browser? Let me know if you can?
Tess
BTW
Here is a screen shot of the song in the post is supposed to look like:
I was first using times new roman. change that one with lucinda console then lucinda sans unicode but. The result is as my screenshot is.
I can see it with google chrome 14.0 and I don’t wanna use these characters as most of my visitors are non chrome.
That’s ok then. It is odd, though: I know several people who can see it in Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
As for the protected post, it’s not finished and don’t feel good showing it to any more people until I have time to work on it.
I could see these characters from Chrome 14.0 and I copied a few in my post
http://itspak.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/best-of-twenty-eleven-a-review/
Worst thing is that I can not see them from my latest version of firefox.
And seeing it through opera (11.60) tells me another story. The character ♫ I copied in the title. But it shows a bird instead. Strange! Other characters not showing well too.
Well, if ♫ (♫ — & # 9835; — Beamed eighth notes) looks like a bird, it is strange, but a musical note and a bird sort of go together: birds singing is lovely. I don’t see birds though. It’s a mystery.
How to upload an image in the comments?
You can add pictures to comments in your own blog only.
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/post-readers?replies=2#post-784164
OK
I have sent you an image. Try to upload it here for the sake of amusement for visitors.
The link is not attached in my gmail. Can you send it again?
I’ve sent it again.
And here it is:
Yeah it is. I don’t know who’ll solve this mystery.
Can you see me?
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♘♔♚☉☾☁☁☁☁☁☁☺ randomly copied characters from the Character palette on a Mac – Can you see these?
Hi Joanna,
I see a chess white knight, a white queen? (or king: I’m not up on chess), a black queen, and a circle with a dot in the center. Then there is a crescent moon, a few black clouds, and a smiley face. Being a Mac user exclusively, I don’t know if other operating systems have the special character palette.
Very useful, especially the musical notes. I have the character keyboard in the navigation bar on my Mac, but it doesn’t show very many musical notes – just a clef, a stave, and a couple of others.
I posted a couple of musical notes to Twitter using ‘Twitter For Mac’. The notes showed up as the HTML code on ‘Twitter For Mac’, but rendered fine on the browser version of Twitter.
Interesting, about Twitter—I don’t have a Twitter account to test these special characters.
☀ ☁ ☂☃ ♭ ♮ ♯ ⚘ ⬖ ⬗ ⸖ ⎈ 𝄞 𝄢 𝄆 𝄇 ⌘
Even better, I just highlighted and copied the symbols you used in your reply here and pasted them into ‘Twitter For Mac’ and they showed up exactly as they appear here, and they also appeared just fine on Twitter on the web.
Those are from the special characters on Macs, so I don’t know if folks with other operating systems can see them: find it in TextEdit, Safari, Firefox—>Edit—>Special Characters.
I always wanted to find this one: ⌘
and this:
LOL
This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing. As a new blogger I seem to spend most of my time on basics like posting daily and writing. This info will make it more fun for me and the readers, too!
Hi Julie,
Yes, these are silly and fun. Liven up a post or a title with something just because you feel like it! If you blog as a hobby, then you should not have to be serious all the time. Well, that’s my opinion: enjoy yourself!
FYI: I’m using Safari Version 5.1.2 on an iMac with Micro Sans serif and standard encoding and it all shows perfectly. Great post!
Thank you alanschuyler.
I’m curious what Google and other search engines do with these special characters if one uses them in titles. Or even in content of a post? I suspect they are ignored. Even so, a new reader seeing stars, how would that be bad?
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