How to type Equals Sign
= is the = key, in the same place on US and UK keyboards. Alt + 61 on the numeric keypad produces it on any Windows layout, which is the way in when the keyboard in front of you has no key for it, and = writes it in HTML. Its codepoint is U+003D.
Equals Sign
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+003D
- Windows
- Alt + 61
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 61 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| HTML | = | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+003D | EQUALS SIGN |
Symbols related to Equals Sign
The Unicode code chart points from = to ≈, ≠ and ≡, and the rest are filed under equals and equal in CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes alongside the names.
Other math symbols
= lives in the Basic Latin block (U+0000-U+007F), the original ASCII set: the letters, digits and punctuation printed on a US keyboard. Within Unicode it is classified as Sm, a mathematical symbol. Software may lay it out with the spacing an operator expects.
What Equals Sign is used for
In mathematical notation = is a relation: it makes a claim about the two things either side of it, which is true or false rather than a value to work out. TeX gives a relation more space than an operator, and breaks a long line at one in preference to breaking at an operator. That is the classification unicode-math gives it, and it is what decides how the symbol is set: $\equal$ 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 it is equal. That word is what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Equals Sign is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches it as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Equals Sign
Unicode annotates = directly. Against U+003D the code chart carries the note “Other related characters: 2241-2263”. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from = to Approximately Equal, Not Equal, Identical To, canadian syllabics hyphen (U+1400), double hyphen (U+2E40) and katakana-hiragana double hyphen (U+30A0). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Equals Sign looks nearly right but not quite.
How Equals Sign behaves in software
= takes one column in a terminal. 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 Equals Sign
What does equal sign with 3 lines mean?
= is EQUALS SIGN, encoded at U+003D. The Unicode code chart annotates it “Other related characters: 2241-2263”, which is the standard's own statement of what it is for. It is distinct from canadian syllabics hyphen (U+1400) and almost equal to (U+2248), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
Every way to write Equals Sign
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+003D |
| Decimal | 61 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 3D |
| UTF-16 bytes | 00 3D |
| HTML entity | = |
| HTML numeric | = or = |
| CSS | \003D |
| JavaScript | \u003D |
| Python | \u003D |
| URL-encoded | %3D |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\equal$ |
| SVG | 003D.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If = needs escaping
= is one byte in ASCII, in UTF-8 and in every code page in common use, so it never arrives corrupted. Its problem is the opposite one: it means something to the software reading it. In HTML it can be written =, in a URL it is %3D, and inside a CSV field, a shell command or a regular expression it has to be quoted or escaped rather than typed plainly. That is also why = is the character people substitute when the one they wanted will not type.