How to type Middle Dot
To type Middle Dot (·), press Alt + 0183 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or press Option + Shift + 9 on Mac, or write · in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+00B7 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 00b7 on Linux, or 00b7 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Middle Dot
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+00B7
- Windows
- Alt + 0183
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 0183 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | Option + Shift + 9 | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | · | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+00B7 | MIDDLE DOT |
Other punctuation symbols
Middle Dot is not the only name it goes by: people look for · as dot in the middle 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 Po, a punctuation mark.
How to type · on Windows and on a phone
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0183 on the numeric keypad.
On a phone, neither iOS nor Android has a codepoint route. Copy · 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 Middle Dot 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: $\cdotp$ 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 interpunct and middot. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Middle Dot is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches them as well as the Unicode name.
What · gets confused with
· has lookalikes that are a different character underneath. Search, sorting and anything that compares strings can tell them apart even where a reader cannot.
• (U+2022) is the bullet, larger, which starts a list item.
∙ (U+2219) is the bullet operator, which is arithmetic.
× (U+00D7) is the multiplication sign, for the other way of writing a product.
What Unicode says about Middle Dot
The standard recognises · under other names as well: midpoint (in typography), Georgian comma, Greek middle dot (ano teleia). Those are a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why they turn up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
Unicode annotates · directly. Against U+00B7 the code chart carries the note “Also used as a raised decimal point or to denote multiplication; for multiplication 22C5 is preferred”. It adds: used as a vowel length mark (part of words) in many Amerindian orthographies. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from · to Bullet Point, full stop (U+002E), dot above (U+02D9), greek ano teleia (U+0387), one dot leader (U+2024) and hyphenation point (U+2027). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Middle Dot looks nearly right but not quite.
How Middle Dot 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 Middle Dot
How to type a middle dot?
You can press Alt + 0183 on Windows, with Num Lock on and the digits typed on the numeric keypad, or press Option + Shift + 9 on Mac. Either produces ·.
What is the dot in the middle of the keyboard?
· is MIDDLE DOT, encoded at U+00B7. The Unicode code chart annotates it “Also used as a raised decimal point or to denote multiplication; for multiplication 22C5 is preferred”, which is the standard's own statement of what it is for. It is distinct from full stop (U+002E) and dot above (U+02D9), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
Every way to write Middle Dot
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+00B7 |
| Decimal | 183 |
| UTF-8 bytes | C2 B7 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 00 B7 |
| HTML entity | · |
| HTML numeric | · or · |
| CSS | \00B7 |
| JavaScript | \u00B7 |
| Python | \u00B7 |
| URL-encoded | %C2%B7 |
| LaTeX, in prose | \textperiodcentered |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\cdotp$ |
| SVG | 00B7.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If · arrives as ·
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes C2 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+00B7.