How to type Left Right Arrow
To type Left Right Arrow (↔), press Alt + 29 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or write ↔ in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+2194 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 2194 on Linux, or 2194 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Left Right Arrow
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+2194
- Windows
- Alt + 29
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 29 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | N/A | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | ↔ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+2194 | LEFT RIGHT ARROW |
Symbols related to Left Right Arrow
These are filed under arrow in CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes alongside the names.
Other arrows symbols
↔ lives in the Arrows block (U+2190-U+21FF), arrows in every direction and weight. Within Unicode it is classified as Sm, a mathematical symbol. Software may lay it out with the spacing an operator expects.
What Left Right Arrow 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: $\leftrightarrow$ in LaTeX, in maths mode rather than in a sentence.
What Unicode says about Left Right Arrow
The standard recognises ↔ under another name as well: z notation relation. That is a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why it turns up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
How Left Right Arrow 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 Left Right Arrow
What does the left right arrow emoji mean?
↔ is LEFT RIGHT ARROW, encoded at U+2194.
Every way to write Left Right Arrow
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+2194 |
| Decimal | 8596 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 86 94 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 21 94 |
| HTML entity | ↔ |
| HTML numeric | ↔ or ↔ |
| CSS | \2194 |
| JavaScript | \u2194 |
| Python | \u2194 |
| URL-encoded | %E2%86%94 |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\leftrightarrow$ |
| SVG | 2194.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If ↔ arrives as ↔
One character has become three, which is what a three-byte UTF-8 sequence looks like when each byte is read separately: E2 86 94 read as Windows-1252 gives exactly ↔. The text is intact and the damage is in the reading, so setting the reader to UTF-8 restores it and retyping does not. A rectangle instead of the mojibake means the opposite: the encoding is right and the font has no glyph at U+2194, which for a character this far outside Latin-1 is common in older office fonts.