HTML Entities
Given that HTML consists of tags that contain left and right angle brackets and quote marks, one might think that trying to display those symbols on a web page is a bit of a headache. It's actually quite easy. HTML makes use of entities. An entity is a representation of a character, whether it's a letter, a number, or some other piece of character data. It consists of an ampersand (&), the name or number of the entity, and a semicolon (;).
| Description | Entity | Character | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-breaking space | |
  |
|
| Less than | < |
< | < |
| Greater than | > |
> | > |
| Ampersand | & |
& | & |
| Quotation mark | " |
" | " |
| Apostrophe / single quote | ' |
' | ' |
That's not the be-all and end-all of it, though; there are hundreds of other entities, covering such subjects as currency, accented vowels, mathematical symbols; search for an HTML entities reference to get a complete list. If you intend to spend any appreciable length of time working on web pages, you'll find it very useful indeed.