How to type Not Element Of
To type Not Element Of (∉), press Alt + 8713 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+2209 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 2209 on Linux, or 2209 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Not An Element Of
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+2209
- Windows
- Alt + 8713 needs regedit
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 8713 | Above 255, so Windows will not accept it as typed. Copy the character instead. |
| Mac | N/A | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | ∉ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+2209 | NOT AN ELEMENT OF |
Symbols related to Not Element Of
These are filed under element and not in CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes alongside the names.
Other math symbols
∉ lives in the Mathematical Operators block (U+2200-U+22FF), the core set of mathematical and logical operators. Within Unicode it is classified as Sm, a mathematical symbol. Software may lay it out with the spacing an operator expects.
∉ has a decomposed form: it can also be written as U+2208 Element Of, U+0338 Combining Long Solidus Overlay. The two look identical and are not equal as strings, which is why a search for a word containing ∉ sometimes fails against text that was typed on a different system. Everything on this site uses the single-codepoint (NFC) form shown here.
What Not Element Of 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: $\notin$ 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 not an element. That word is what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Not Element Of is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches it as well as the Unicode name.
How Not Element Of 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. It is a mirrored character: in right-to-left text it is drawn reversed, so it keeps pointing at what it pointed at.
Every way to write Not Element Of
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+2209 |
| Decimal | 8713 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 88 89 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 22 09 |
| HTML entity | ∉ |
| HTML numeric | ∉ or ∉ |
| CSS | \2209 |
| JavaScript | \u2209 |
| Python | \u2209 |
| URL-encoded | %E2%88%89 |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\notin$ |
| SVG | 2209.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 88 89 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+2209, which for a character this far outside Latin-1 is common in older office fonts.