Including Special Characters

Many special characters and symbols are available within DocBook. You display a particular character by entering the appropriate entity reference.

Refer to Chapter 5 “Summary of Special Character Entities” for a complete list of the available characters.

To Include a Special Character

Refer to Chapter 5 “Summary of Special Character Entities” to determine the entity name for the character you want to display.
Determine which ISO entity file contains the special character, and add the following two lines among your other entity declarations (where entity-name is a meaningful name to you):
<!entity & ISOset PUBLIC "ISOsetpublicID"> % ISOset;
Wherever you want to display the special character, enter its entity reference:
&entity-name;

Examples

To entity for the copyright symbol (©) is included in the ISO numeric set, so you must first include the ISO numeric entities (at the top of your help volume with your other entity declarations) as shown here:

<!ENTITY % ISOnumeric PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Numeric and Special Graphic//EN">
%ISOnumeric;

Then you can place the following entity reference where the copyright symbol is to appear:

©

To display the uppercase Greek letter sigma (∑), you must first include the ISO Greek entities (at the top of your help volume with your other entity declarations) as shown here:

<!ENTITY % ISOgreek PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Greek Symbols//EN">
%ISOgreek;

Then you can place the following entity reference where the sigma character is to appear:

Σ

As with any entity, case is not significant in the entity names for special characters.

Including Special Characters

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To Include a Special Character

Examples