How to type Alpha
To type Alpha (α), press Alt + 224 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or write α in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+03B1 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 03b1 on Linux, or 03b1 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Greek Small Letter Alpha
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+03B1
- Windows
- Alt + 224
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 224 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | N/A | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | α | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+03B1 | GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA |
Other greek symbols
α lives in the Greek and Coptic block (U+0370-U+03FF), the Greek alphabet, used throughout mathematics and the sciences. Within Unicode it is classified as Ll, a lowercase letter. It has an uppercase counterpart and changes under case conversion. Its bidirectional class makes it left-to-right.
Its uppercase counterpart is Α (U+0391). They are separate codepoints, so a byte comparison treats them as different characters even though a case-insensitive search does not.
How to type α on a Mac and in Microsoft Word
On a Mac, there is no dedicated shortcut. Character Viewer, on Control + Command + Space, finds it under Greek Small Letter Alpha if the shortcut is taken by something else.
In Microsoft Word, type 03b1 and press Alt + X. Word reads the four characters before the cursor as a hex codepoint and replaces them, and pressing Alt + X again turns α back into 03b1, which is the quickest way to check what a character really is.
In Google Docs, Insert, then Special characters, then search for greek small letter alpha or paste 03b1 into the codepoint box.
On a phone, neither iOS nor Android has a codepoint route. Copy α from this page once, then add it as a text replacement (Settings, General, Keyboard on iOS) so a short abbreviation expands to it from then on.
What Alpha is used for
In mathematical notation α is a variable: it stands for a quantity rather than acting on one, so an equation treats it the way it treats x, and the spacing around it is the spacing around a letter. That is the classification unicode-math gives it, and it is what decides how the symbol is set: $\mupalpha$ in LaTeX, in maths mode rather than in a sentence.
The command is \mupalpha rather than the \alpha most people reach for, and the difference is not cosmetic: mup is unicode-math for maths, upright, and this codepoint is the upright letter. Plain LaTeX's short command gives the sloped math-italic letter, which is a different character with a different codepoint. Copying α into an equation gets you the upright one.
α is a letter before it is a symbol, and on the Greek keyboard layout it is simply A: the key your keycap already calls A. That is the route when you are typing Greek rather than reaching for one character. How to type Greek on a keyboard has the whole map.
What α gets confused with
Unicode's own confusables table, the one used to catch lookalike domain names, groups α with a (U+0061, Latin Small Letter A). They are separate characters that render close enough to be mistaken for one another, so a search or a string comparison will separate them where your eye will not. If Alpha is not matching where you expect it to, one of these is the usual reason.
What Unicode says about Alpha
The code chart points from α to Proportional To and latin small letter alpha (U+0251). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Alpha looks nearly right but not quite.
How Alpha behaves in software
α is East Asian Ambiguous: one column in a Western locale and two in a CJK one. That is why a table that lines up on your machine can break on somebody else's, with no change to the text at all. It is a left-to-right character, so it holds that direction even inside a right-to-left paragraph.
What people ask about Alpha
What is the symbol for alpha?
α is GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA, encoded at U+03B1. It is distinct from latin small letter alpha (U+0251) and proportional to (U+221D), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
What does the greek word alpha mean?
In Word, type 03b1 and press Alt+X, which converts the codepoint you just typed into α. Insert › Symbol › More Symbols finds it by its Unicode name, GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA. Google Docs has no Alt+X, so use Alt + 224 there, or Insert › Special characters and search the same name.
How to type alpha symbol on iphone?
You can press Alt + 224 on Windows, with Num Lock on and the digits typed on the numeric keypad. That produces α.
How to type alpha in latex?
In HTML you can write α, or use the numeric escape α. The codepoint itself is U+03B1, which is what LaTeX, CSS escapes and programming languages want.
Every way to write Alpha
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+03B1 |
| Decimal | 945 |
| UTF-8 bytes | CE B1 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 03 B1 |
| HTML entity | α |
| HTML numeric | α or α |
| CSS | \03B1 |
| JavaScript | \u03B1 |
| Python | \u03B1 |
| URL-encoded | %CE%B1 |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\mupalpha$ |
| SVG | 03B1.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If α arrives as α
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes CE B1 are being read one at a time as Windows-1252. The Latin-1 range is where this happens most, because it is the range every legacy system thought it already handled. Nothing is lost, and retyping will not help: the fix is at the reading end, which has to be told the text is UTF-8. An empty rectangle is the opposite complaint, and means the encoding is right and the font has no glyph for U+03B1.