How to type Phi
To type Phi (φ), press Alt + 237 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or write φ in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+03C6 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 03c6 on Linux, or 03c6 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Greek Small Letter Phi
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+03C6
- Windows
- Alt + 237
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 237 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | N/A | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | φ | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+03C6 | GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI |
Other greek symbols
φ lives in the Greek and Coptic block (U+0370-U+03FF), the Greek alphabet, used throughout mathematics and the sciences. Within Unicode it is classified as Ll, a lowercase letter. It has an uppercase counterpart and changes under case conversion. Its bidirectional class makes it left-to-right.
Its uppercase counterpart is Φ (U+03A6). They are separate codepoints, so a byte comparison treats them as different characters even though a case-insensitive search does not.
How to type φ in Microsoft Word and on Windows
In Microsoft Word, type 03c6 and press Alt + X. Word reads the four characters before the cursor as a hex codepoint and replaces them, and pressing Alt + X again turns φ back into 03c6, which is the quickest way to check what a character really is.
On Windows, hold Alt and type 237 on the numeric keypad.
On a phone, neither iOS nor Android has a codepoint route. Copy φ 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 Phi is used for
In mathematical notation φ is a variable: it stands for a quantity rather than acting on one, so an equation treats it the way it treats x, and the spacing around it is the spacing around a letter. That is the classification unicode-math gives it, and it is what decides how the symbol is set: $\mupvarphi$ in LaTeX, in maths mode rather than in a sentence.
φ is a letter before it is a symbol, and on the Greek keyboard layout it is simply F: the key your keycap already calls F. That is the route when you are typing Greek rather than reaching for one character. How to type Greek on a keyboard has the whole map.
What Unicode says about Phi
Unicode annotates φ directly. Against U+03C6 the code chart carries the note “The ordinary Greek letter, showing considerable glyph variation”. It adds: in mathematical contexts, the loopy glyph is preferred, to contrast with 03D5. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from φ to latin small letter phi (U+0278) and greek phi symbol (U+03D5). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Phi looks nearly right but not quite.
How Phi behaves in software
φ 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 is a left-to-right character, so it holds that direction even inside a right-to-left paragraph.
What people ask about Phi
What does phi mean in greek?
φ is GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI, encoded at U+03C6. The Unicode code chart annotates it “The ordinary Greek letter, showing considerable glyph variation”, which is the standard's own statement of what it is for. It is distinct from latin small letter phi (U+0278) and greek phi symbol (U+03D5), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
How to type phi symbol on phone?
You can press Alt + 237 on Windows, with Num Lock on and the digits typed on the numeric keypad. That produces φ.
What does the greek word phi mean?
In Word, type 03c6 and press Alt+X, which converts the codepoint you just typed into φ. Insert › Symbol › More Symbols finds it by its Unicode name, GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI. Google Docs has no Alt+X, so use Alt + 237 there, or Insert › Special characters and search the same name.
Every way to write Phi
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+03C6 |
| Decimal | 966 |
| UTF-8 bytes | CF 86 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 03 C6 |
| HTML entity | φ |
| HTML numeric | φ or φ |
| CSS | \03C6 |
| JavaScript | \u03C6 |
| Python | \u03C6 |
| URL-encoded | %CF%86 |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\mupvarphi$ |
| SVG | 03C6.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If φ arrives as φ
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes CF 86 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+03C6.