Unicode character finder: find any character by name or code point

Every character on your screen has exactly one number, called its code point, and exactly one official name. U+2192 is RIGHTWARDS ARROW, and it is always the arrow character, in every font, on every system. When a character shows as a box or a question mark, the number is fine and the font is missing the shape. The free Cubbbix Unicode Character Finder searches a curated set of characters by name or code point, shows the HTML entity for each one, and inspects pasted characters to reveal their exact code points.

Look-alikes cause real mistakes. The multiplication sign (U+00D7) is not the letter x. The hyphen-minus on your keyboard (U+002D) is not the en dash (U+2013) or the em dash (U+2014). The Arabic question mark (U+061F) is not the Latin one (U+003F). Search by name when you are unsure, and check the code point on the card before you copy: if the code point matches, the character matches, whatever it looks like in your font.

Figure 1: Search by name or code point, and copy the character with its HTML entity.

The two Arabic ligatures people search for most

The set includes U+FDFA, the ligature for sallallahu alayhe wasallam, the blessing after the Prophet's name, as one character. It also includes U+FDFC, the rial sign, used for the Saudi and Iranian riyal. Both are single code points, not typed-out phrases, which is why copying them from a page that renders them as separate letters gives a different string. Paste either one into the inspector on the tool page and it reports the code point back, so you can confirm what you actually copied.

In HTML, write the entity, using the decimal form of the code point. In code, write the escape for the same number. The card for each character shows the code point, which is the number to use in all three places. The set is curated, not the whole standard: Unicode has over 150,000 characters, and this page holds the ones people actually search for, arrows, maths, currency, punctuation, fractions, Greek letters and Arabic ligatures. The code-point lookup still renders any valid code point, but names are shown only for characters in the set.

Figure 2: U+FDFA and U+FDFC are each one character, not typed-out phrases.

Using a character in a page or document

Copy the character from the card when the document will carry the font for it. Use the HTML entity when the page encoding is in doubt, since the entity is plain ASCII and cannot be mangled by a wrong encoding. Use the escape in code for the same reason. And when a pasted character behaves wrong, paste it into the inspector first: the code point tells you in one step whether you have the character you meant or a look-alike.

Figure 3: Copy the character, or copy its entity when encoding is in doubt.

Questions people ask