How to type Plus-Minus
To type Plus-Minus (±), press Alt + 0177 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or press Option + Shift + = on Mac, or write ± in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+00B1 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 00b1 on Linux, or 00b1 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Plus-Minus Sign
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+00B1
- Windows
- Alt + 0177
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 0177 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | Option + Shift + = | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | ± | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+00B1 | PLUS-MINUS SIGN |
Other math symbols
Plus-Minus is not the only name it goes by: people look for ± as plus or minus 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 Sm, a mathematical symbol. Software may lay it out with the spacing an operator expects. Its bidirectional class makes it a European number terminator, so it sits beside a number without breaking its direction.
How to type ± in Microsoft Word
In Microsoft Word, type 00b1 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 ± back into 00b1, which is the quickest way to check what a character really is.
What Plus-Minus 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: $\pm$ in LaTeX, in maths mode rather than in a sentence.
What ± gets confused with
± has a twin that is a different character underneath. Search, sorting and anything that compares strings can tell them apart even where a reader cannot.
∓ (U+2213) is minus-or-plus, the same sign with the order reversed. In an equation that is the difference between two answers.
What Unicode says about Plus-Minus
The standard recognises ± under another name as well: biquintile (astrological aspect: 144°). That is a formal alias, not a nickname, which is why it turns up in other people's documentation for the same codepoint.
The code chart points from ± to minus-or-plus sign (U+2213) and division times (U+22C7). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Plus-Minus looks nearly right but not quite.
How Plus-Minus 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 Plus-Minus
Does plus or minus mean favorite?
± is PLUS-MINUS SIGN, encoded at U+00B1. It is distinct from minus-or-plus sign (U+2213) and division times (U+22C7), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
Where is plus minus symbol in word?
In Word, type 00b1 and press Alt+X, which converts the codepoint you just typed into ±. Insert › Symbol › More Symbols finds it by its Unicode name, PLUS-MINUS SIGN. Google Docs has no Alt+X, so use Alt + 0177 there, or Insert › Special characters and search the same name.
Every way to write Plus-Minus
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+00B1 |
| Decimal | 177 |
| UTF-8 bytes | C2 B1 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 00 B1 |
| HTML entity | ± |
| HTML numeric | ± or ± |
| CSS | \00B1 |
| JavaScript | \u00B1 |
| Python | \u00B1 |
| URL-encoded | %C2%B1 |
| LaTeX, in prose | \textpm (needs \usepackage{textcomp}) |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\pm$ |
| SVG | 00B1.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If ± arrives as ±
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes C2 B1 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+00B1.