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HTML How to Make a Website HTML First Create the Content Containers

Posted by Jeremiah Lugtu
Jeremiah Lugtu
737 Points

Do you have to use all HTML Entities all the time? and why?

I mean aside from convention?

For example in the video "&copy" was used when you can just type it and it would yield the same results (Alt/Option + G)

Both shows up in the browser and no error comes up in the HTML validator.

So is it okay to just type the copyright symbol?

This question only pertains to certain entities such as the example used... obviously it does not include brackets (&LT/&GT) and such

Thanks :)

1 Answer

Sergey Podgornyy
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 Points
Sergey Podgornyy
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 Points

You don't generally need to use HTML character entities if your editor supports Unicode. Entities can be useful when:

  • Your keyboard does not support the character you need to type. For example, many keyboards do not have em-dash or the copyright symbol.
  • Your editor does not support Unicode (very common some years ago, but probably not today).
  • You want to make it explicit in the source what is happening. For example, the   code is clearer than the corresponding white space character.
  • You need to escape HTML special characters like <, &, or ".
Jeremiah Lugtu
Jeremiah Lugtu
737 Points

Thanks a bunch! :D