ASCII

ASCII, the acronym for the "American Standard Code for Information Interchange," is the first character-encoding scheme used between computers on the Internet.

Modern character encoding schemes like UTF-8 and ISO-8859 are backward-compatible with ASCII.

The ASCII Character Set

The ASCII character set was designed in the 1960s as a standard for computers and hardware devices, such as printers and tape drives.

Originally, ASCII was based on the English alphabet. It is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters: the numbers 0–9, uppercase and lowercase English letters A–Z, basic punctuation symbols, and special characters.

Most character sets used in modern computers, HTML, and the Internet are backward-compatible with ASCII.

Below is a table listing the 128 ASCII characters and their equivalent HTML entity codes.

ASCII Printable Characters

ASCII Character	HTML Entity Code	Description
		space
!	!	exclamation mark
"	"	quotation mark
#	#	number sign
$	$	dollar sign
%	%	percent sign
&	&	ampersand
'	'	apostrophe
(	(	left parenthesis
)	)	right parenthesis
*	*	asterisk
+	+	plus sign
,	,	comma
-	-	hyphen
.	.	period
/	/	slash
0	0	digit 0
1	1	digit 1
2	2	digit 2
3	3	digit 3
4	4	digit 4
5	5	digit 5
6	6	digit 6
7	7	digit 7
8	8	digit 8
9	9	digit 9
:	:	colon
;	;	semicolon
<	<	less-than
=	=	equals-to
>	>	greater-than
?	?	question mark
@	@	at sign
A	A	uppercase A
B	B	uppercase B
C	C	uppercase C
D	D	uppercase D
E	E	uppercase E
F	F	uppercase F
G	G	uppercase G
H	H	uppercase H
I	I	uppercase I
J	J	uppercase J
K	K	uppercase K
L	L	uppercase L
M	M	uppercase M
N	N	uppercase N
O	O	uppercase O
P	P	uppercase P
Q	Q	uppercase Q
R	R	uppercase R
S	S	uppercase S
T	T	uppercase T
U	U	uppercase U
V	V	uppercase V
W	W	uppercase W
X	X	uppercase X
Y	Y	uppercase Y
Z	Z	uppercase Z
[	[	left square bracket
\	\	backslash
]	]	right square bracket
^	^	caret
_	_	underscore
`	`	grave accent
a	a	lowercase a
b	b	lowercase b
c	c	lowercase c
d	d	lowercase d
e	e	lowercase e
f	f	lowercase f
g	g	lowercase g
h	h	lowercase h
i	i	lowercase i
j	j	lowercase j
k	k	lowercase k
l	l	lowercase l
m	m	lowercase m
n	n	lowercase n
o	o	lowercase o
p	p	lowercase p
q	q	lowercase q
r	r	lowercase r
s	s	lowercase s
t	t	lowercase t
u	u	lowercase u
v	v	lowercase v
w	w	lowercase w
x	x	lowercase x
y	y	lowercase y
z	z	lowercase z
{	{	left curly brace
|	|	vertical bar
}	}	right curly brace
~	~	tilde

ASCII Device Control Characters

The ASCII device control characters (except horizontal tab, line feed, and carriage return) are rarely used in HTML documents. Originally, ASCII control characters (range 00–31, plus 127) were designed to control hardware devices.

ASCII Character	HTML Entity Code	Description
NUL	�	null character
SOH	�	start of header
STX	�	start of text
ETX	�	end of text
EOT	�	end of transmission
ENQ	�	enquiry
ACK	�	acknowledge
BEL	�	bell (ring)
BS	�	backspace
HT		horizontal tab
LF		line feed
VT	�	vertical tab
FF		form feed
CR		carriage return
SO	�	shift out
SI	�	shift in
DLE	�	data link escape
DC1	�	device control 1
DC2	�	device control 2
DC3	�	device control 3
DC4	�	device control 4
NAK	�	negative acknowledge
SYN	�	synchronize
ETB	�	end transmission block
CAN	�	cancel
EM	�	end of medium
SUB	�	substitute
ESC	�	escape
FS	�	file separator
GS	�	group separator
RS	�	record separator
US	�	unit separator
DEL	�	delete (rubout)

Practical Usage Example

You can insert these characters into HTML using either numeric or named references. Named entities are often preferred for readability:

<!-- Numeric reference -->
<p>&#38; displays as &amp;</p>

<!-- Named reference -->
<p>&amp; also displays as &amp;</p>

Practice

What are the uses of ASCII in HTML?

It is used to write the HTML code itself.It is used to insert special characters and symbols that are not readily available on the keyboard.ASCII in HTML is used to format the text in the HTML document.ASCII in HTML is used to make websites interactive.ASCII in HTML is used to set the layout of the website.