How to type Proportional To
To type Proportional To (∝), press Alt + 8733 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+221D directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 221d on Linux, or 221d then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Proportional To
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+221D
- Windows
- Alt + 8733 needs regedit
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 8733 | 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+221D | PROPORTIONAL TO |
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.
What Proportional To 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: $\propto$ 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 proportionality. That word is what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Proportional To is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches it as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Proportional To
The code chart points from ∝ to Alpha. These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Proportional To looks nearly right but not quite.
How Proportional To 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. It is a mirrored character: in right-to-left text it is drawn reversed, so it keeps pointing at what it pointed at.
What people ask about Proportional To
What is the symbol for proportional to?
∝ is PROPORTIONAL TO, encoded at U+221D. It is distinct from greek small letter alpha (U+03B1), which the chart lists beside it precisely because they are confused for one another.
What is the proportional symbol called?
Unicode calls ∝ PROPORTIONAL TO, at U+221D.
Is proportional to symbol latex?
In HTML you can write ∝, or use the numeric escape ∝. The codepoint itself is U+221D, which is what LaTeX, CSS escapes and programming languages want.
Every way to write Proportional To
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+221D |
| Decimal | 8733 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 88 9D |
| UTF-16 bytes | 22 1D |
| HTML entity | ∝ |
| HTML numeric | ∝ or ∝ |
| CSS | \221D |
| JavaScript | \u221D |
| Python | \u221D |
| URL-encoded | %E2%88%9D |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\propto$ |
| SVG | 221D.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If ∝ arrives as âˆ�
One character has become three, which is what a three-byte UTF-8 sequence looks like when each byte is read separately: E2 88 9D 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+221D, which for a character this far outside Latin-1 is common in older office fonts.