How to type Section Symbol
To type Section Symbol (§), press Alt + 0167 on Windows, holding Alt while typing the digits on the numeric keypad, or press Option + 6 on Mac, or write § in HTML. On any system you can copy it from this page, or enter its codepoint U+00A7 directly: Ctrl+Shift+U then 00a7 on Linux, or 00a7 then Alt+X in Microsoft Word.
Section Sign
- Copy it
- Unicode
- U+00A7
- Windows
- Alt + 0167
| Where | Shortcut | How |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt + 0167 | Hold Alt and type the number on the numeric keypad. |
| Mac | Option + 6 | Press the keys together. |
| HTML | § | Paste this into HTML source. |
| Unicode | U+00A7 | SECTION SIGN |
Other legal symbols
§ 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 § in Google Docs and on Windows
In Google Docs, Insert, then Special characters, then search for section sign or paste 00a7 into the codepoint box.
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0167 on the numeric keypad.
What Section Symbol is used for
In mathematical notation § is an ordinary symbol: it carries no special spacing and sits in an expression the way a letter does, standing for a thing rather than doing something to the things around it. That is the classification unicode-math gives it, and it is what decides how the symbol is set: $\mathsection$ 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 paragraph, part and silcrow. Those words are what somebody looking for this character is liable to type when Section Symbol is not the name they know it by, and the search on the symbol lists matches them as well as the Unicode name.
What Unicode says about Section Symbol
Unicode annotates § directly. Against U+00A7 the code chart carries the note “Used in referencing numbered sections or paragraphs”. That is the standard saying what the character is for, rather than an inference from its name.
The code chart points from § to top half section sign (U+2E39). These are the characters the standard thinks you might have meant instead, which makes them the ones worth checking when Section Symbol looks nearly right but not quite.
How Section Symbol 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 Section Symbol
How to type section symbol windows?
You can press Alt + 0167 on Windows, with Num Lock on and the digits typed on the numeric keypad, or press Option + 6 on Mac. Either produces §.
How to insert section symbol in google docs?
In Word, type 00a7 and press Alt+X, which converts the codepoint you just typed into §. Insert › Symbol › More Symbols finds it by its Unicode name, SECTION SIGN. Google Docs has no Alt+X, so use Alt + 0167 there, or Insert › Special characters and search the same name.
Every way to write Section Symbol
| Form | Value |
|---|---|
| Codepoint | U+00A7 |
| Decimal | 167 |
| UTF-8 bytes | C2 A7 |
| UTF-16 bytes | 00 A7 |
| HTML entity | § |
| HTML numeric | § or § |
| CSS | \00A7 |
| JavaScript | \u00A7 |
| Python | \u00A7 |
| URL-encoded | %C2%A7 |
| LaTeX, in prose | \S |
| LaTeX, in maths mode | $\mathsection$ |
| SVG | 00A7.svg · (SIL Open Font License) |
If § arrives as §
That is this exact character, undamaged: its two UTF-8 bytes C2 A7 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+00A7.