How to type Division Sign
To type Division Sign (÷), press Alt + 0247 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or press Option + / on Mac, or write ÷ in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+00F7 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 00f7 on Linux, or 00f7 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Division Sign
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+00F7
- Windows
- Alt + 0247
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 0247 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | Option + / | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | ÷ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+00F7 | DIVISION SIGN |
Other math symbols
Division Sign is not the only name it goes by: people look for ÷ as divide too, and the search box on this site matches that as readily as the Unicode name.
÷ lives in the Latin-1 Supplement block (U+0080-U+00FF), the accented letters and common signs Western European languages needed. Within Unicode it is classified as Sm, a mathematical symbol. Software may lay it out with the spacing an operator expects.
What Division Sign is used for
In mathematical notation ÷ is a binary operator: it takes one operand on each side, and TeX sets a medium space either side of it so that the three parts read as a single expression rather than as three symbols in a row. That is the classification unicode-math gives it, and it is what decides how the symbol is set: $\div$ in LaTeX, in maths mode rather than in a sentence.
Unicode publishes a second list of names for ÷ in CLDR, the keywords its own search data offers rather than the formal name, and they are divide and obelus. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Division Sign is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches them as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Division Sign
The standard recognises ÷ under another name as well: obelus. That is a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why it turns up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
Unicode annotates ÷ directly. Against U+00F7 the code chart carries the note “Occasionally used as an alternate, more visually distinct shape for a hyphen in some contexts”. It adds: historically used as a punctuation mark to denote questionable passages in manuscripts. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from ÷ to syriac harklean obelus (U+070B), commercial minus sign (U+2052), division slash (U+2215), divides (U+2223), ratio (U+2236) and heavy division sign (U+2797). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Division Sign looks nearly right but not quite.
How Division Sign behaves in software
÷ 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 carries no direction of its own, so in a line that mixes English with Arabic or Hebrew it takes the direction of the text around it rather than forcing one.
What people ask about Division Sign
How to type division symbol?
You can press Alt + 0247 on Windows, with Num Lock on and the digits typed on the numeric keypad, or press Option + / on Mac. Either produces ÷.
What is the symbol for divide?
÷ is DIVISION SIGN, encoded at U+00F7. The Unicode code chart annotates it “Occasionally used as an alternate, more visually distinct shape for a hyphen in some contexts”, which is the standard's own statement of what it is for. It is distinct from syriac harklean obelus (U+070B) and commercial minus sign (U+2052), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
Every way to write Division Sign
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+00F7 |
| Decimal | 247 |
| UTF-8 bytes | C3 B7 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 00 F7 |
| HTML entity | ÷ |
| HTML numeric | ÷ or ÷ |
| CSS | \00F7 |
| JavaScript | \u00F7 |
| Python | \u00F7 |
| URL-encoded | %C3%B7 |
| LaTeX, in prose | \textdiv (needs \usepackage{textcomp}) |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\div$ |
| SVG | 00F7.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If ÷ arrives as ÷
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes C3 B7 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+00F7.