Punctuation Symbols ❝ — Copy and Paste

Beyond the basic period and comma, Unicode includes a rich set of typographic punctuation: smart quotes (" " ' '), foreign-language quotes (« » ‹ › „ "), em and en dashes (— –), the ellipsis (…), section and pilcrow marks (§ ¶), daggers († ‡), bullets (• ‣), the per-mille and per-ten-thousand (‰ ‱), prime marks (′ ″ ‴), the reference marks (※ ⁂ ⁕), and decorative quote ornaments (❝ ❞ ❛ ❜). Useful for clean writing, multilingual content, and typographic polish.

50 symbols · click any one to copy · General Punctuation (U+2000–U+206F), Latin-1 Supplement

‹

›

„

“

”

‘

’

‚

‛

…

—

–

†

‡

•

‣

⁃

‰

‱

′

″

‴

※

⁂

⁕

❝

❞

❛

❜

⁇

⁈

⁉

‖

‗

‘

’

How to use punctuation symbols

Click any mark to copy. Use smart quotes (“ ” ‘ ’) instead of straight quotes for cleaner typography in long-form writing — most writing apps auto-correct them but raw text files don't. The em dash — sets off interjections more strongly than commas or parentheses; the en dash – is for ranges (pages 5–10, the 2024–2026 season). The ellipsis … is one character, not three dots, and screen readers handle it more cleanly. Daggers († ‡) link to footnotes when superscript numbers feel too academic. The pilcrow ¶ marks paragraph breaks in print typography.

Where punctuation symbols shine

Professional writing and articles

Replace 'straight quotes' with “smart quotes” and -- with — em dashes. The visual difference is small but it signals careful editing to discerning readers.

Multilingual content

Use « » for French and Russian quotations, „ " for German, ‹ › for nested quotes inside the outer ones. Each language has its own conventional quote pair.

Footnote and reference marks

Use † for the first footnote, ‡ for the second, § for the third — a typographic convention in older books that's elegant for short, occasional notes.

Math and statistical writing

Use ′ and ″ for feet and inches (5′ 11″), arcminutes and arcseconds in astronomy, and prime/double-prime notation in derivatives. The plain quote characters don't render as crisply for these uses.

Decorative quote ornaments

❝ and ❞ are larger ornamental quote marks used for pull quotes and design accents — set off a key sentence in a long article with ❝ Quote ❞ for visual emphasis.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my smart quote sometimes flip the wrong way?

Smart quotes are directional — ' is a left quote, ' is a right quote. Word processors automatically pick the correct one based on whether you're starting or ending a quotation. If you paste raw text from a plain editor, the system may not know which to use and you'll see the wrong direction. The fix is to type the opening quote at the start of a word and the closing at the end of a word.

What's the difference between – and — and -?

Three different dashes. - (Hyphen, U+002D) joins compound words (well-known, twenty-one). – (En Dash, U+2013) marks ranges (5–10, Monday–Friday). — (Em Dash, U+2014) sets off interjections or parenthetical phrases — like this one. Length and meaning differ; using the right one is a hallmark of polished writing.

Is the ellipsis … better than typing three dots?

Yes for typography. The single ellipsis character (…) is spaced tighter and renders as one glyph, so it doesn't break across line endings the way three separate dots can. Most word processors auto-replace '...' with '…', but in plain text editors and chat apps the conversion doesn't happen and you need to paste the character.