Last checked by the TextEditor.com team
Make a checklist with check boxes or bullets
Type or paste a list, one item per line. Pick a style, then click an item in the preview to tick it off. Copy the result into a chat, a post, an email or a plain text file.
In Word or Google Docs, use their own list buttons instead. Screen readers announce those as real lists, while typed marks are read out one by one.
All the check marks, and which to use
Unicode has several ticks. They look alike in a list of symbols, but they act differently once you paste them into an app or a phone.
| Mark | Name and code | Color emoji on phones | HTML entity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Check mark U+2713 | No | ✓ ✓ | The plain tick. Safe in any app, and it takes the color of the text. | |
| Heavy check mark U+2714 | Sometimes | None | Has an emoji form. Some apps draw it as a picture. | |
| Light check mark U+1F5F8 | No | None | A thin tick, added in 2014. Older devices may show a box. | |
| Ballot box with check U+2611 | Sometimes | None | Has an emoji form, like the heavy check mark. | |
| White heavy check mark U+2705 | Always | None | An emoji only. Its name is "white heavy check mark", although most phones draw a green box. |
Why do ✔ and ☑ sometimes turn into colored pictures? Both were made emoji in 2010, but they kept their plain text form as well. Each app picks one of the two. If you need the plain look, use ✓, which has no emoji form at all.
A tick does not mean "right" everywhere. In Finland and in Swedish schools, a ✓ often marks a wrong answer. In Japan, a circle ○ means correct. Wikipedia's page on the check mark lists more of these local habits.
How to type a check mark or bullet on any device
The bullet • is easy to type on every computer. The check mark ✓ has no key and no Alt code, so most people copy it.
| Where | Bullet • | Check mark ✓ |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Hold Alt and type 0149 on the number pad. | No shortcut. Copy it from the tool above. |
| Microsoft Word | Alt+0149, or use the bullet list button. | Type 2713, then press Alt+X right after. |
| Mac | Option+8 | Press Control, Command and Space, then search for "check". |
| iPhone | Set up a text replacement. | In Settings, General, Keyboard, Text Replacement, make a shortcut like "ck" for ✓. It works in every app. |
| Android with Gboard | Set up a shortcut. | In Gboard settings, open Dictionary, then Personal dictionary, and add ✓ with a short shortcut. |
An old Word trick is to switch the font to Wingdings and type ü, which Wingdings draws as a tick. The file still holds the letter ü. If the font changes, or you paste the text into an email, a ü shows up instead of the tick. The real ✓ from this page works in any font that has it. Unicode 7.0 added many Wingdings shapes in 2014, such as 🗸 and 🗹, so they could be stored as real characters.
On a Mac, Option+V types √. That is the square root sign from math, not a check mark, even though it looks similar.
Hyphen, en dash, em dash and minus: the difference
These four marks are all short lines, but they differ in width and in what they mean. The gray band shows how much room each one takes in your font.
On Windows, Alt+0150 types the en dash and Alt+0151 the em dash. On a Mac, use Option+Hyphen and Shift+Option+Hyphen. The minus sign has no shortcut on either system, so copy it from the tool. Other look-alikes, like the figure dash and the non-breaking hyphen, are in the Dashes and lines group above.
Legal and editing marks: © ® ™ § ¶ †
These marks come from law, printing and publishing. Click one to copy it.
The section sign shows up in laws. "§ 5" means section 5, and a double sign, "§§ 5 to 7", means several sections. The pilcrow ¶ marks a paragraph. Word shows one at the end of every paragraph when you press its Show/Hide ¶ button, so you can spot extra blank lines.
The dagger † points to a second footnote after the asterisk, and the double dagger ‡ to a third. Next to a name or a year, † means that a person has died. The inspector of each tile shows its Alt code and Mac keys: for example Alt+0167 or Option+6 for §, and Alt+0182 or Option+7 for ¶.
Decorate a line with ornaments
The Ornaments group has leaves, buds and swirls made for framing a title. Type a line to see it framed.
For brackets around each letter, try letters in brackets. To put a whole box around your text, see the text frames. Squares, circles and other shapes for bullets are on the page of shape symbols.
See hidden spaces in your text
Text can hold spaces you can't see: a tab where you expected spaces, two spaces in a row, a no-break space from a web page, or a zero width space. Paste your text below. Spaces turn into dots, tabs into arrows and line ends into ¶. Unusual spaces get a colored label.
9 spaces, 1 tab, 1 line break and 2 unusual characters. Point at a label to see its name.
The no-break space keeps two words on the same line, and many web pages use it. A zero width space can sneak into a copied username or a link and break it. To find out what any odd character is, paste it into the character picker, which lists the name of each character in your text.