U+00AD

Soft hyphen

Soft hyphen is a monochrome text character from the Unicode Latin-1 Supplement block, listed here under Invisible & Spacing. Copy it with one click, or use the hex, octal, decimal and HTML entity codes below to embed it in web pages, code, and documents. It is often searched for as "invisible", "hyphenation", "break", "hidden".

Quick facts

Unicode
U+00AD
Decimal
173
Hex
0x00AD
Octal
0o255

Unicode identity

FormatValueCopy
Code pointOfficial Unicode notationU+00AD
Official nameUnicodeData.txt, Unicode 18.0.0SOFT HYPHEN
DecimalBase 10173
HexadecimalBase 160x00AD
OctalBase 80o255
BinaryBase 20000000010101101
General categoryOther, formatCf
Unicode blockU+0080–U+00FFLatin-1 Supplement
PlaneBasic Multilingual Plane (BMP, Plane 0)

HTML & CSS

FormatValueCopy
HTML entity (decimal)­
HTML entity (hex)­
HTML entity (named)­
CSS content escapeUse inside content: "…"\00AD
URL encodedPercent-encoded UTF-8%C2%AD

Programming languages

FormatValueCopy
JavaScript / TypeScript\u00AD
JSONUTF-16 surrogate pairs\u00AD
Python\u00AD
Java / C# / Kotlin\u00AD

Byte encodings

FormatValueCopy
UTF-82 bytesC2 AD
UTF-16 (BE)00AD
UTF-32 (BE)000000AD

How to type Soft hyphen

  • Windows

    Hold Alt and type +AD with the hex numeric keypad option enabled, or type AD then press Alt+X in Word and most Office apps.

  • macOS

    Enable the Unicode Hex Input keyboard, hold Option, and type 00AD. Or open Character Viewer (Control+Command+Space) and search "Soft hyphen".

  • Linux

    Press Ctrl+Shift+U, type ad, then press Space or Enter in GTK apps. IBus and most terminals support the same sequence.

  • HTML, CSS & code

    Paste the character directly, or use the escapes above: ­ in HTML, \00AD in CSS, and \u00AD in JavaScript.

Official Unicode reference

Character name
SOFT HYPHEN
Block
Latin-1 Supplement (U+0080–U+00FF)
General category
Cf — Other, format

Data from the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0. See the official code chart for the Latin-1 Supplement block: U0080.pdf (PDF, unicode.org).

Frequently asked questions

How do I copy the Soft hyphen symbol?

Click the Copy button at the top of this page, or select Soft hyphen and press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on Mac). It is plain Unicode text, so it pastes into documents, chats, code, and design tools.

What is the Unicode code point for Soft hyphen?

Soft hyphen is U+00AD (decimal 173, hexadecimal 0x00AD, octal 0o255). It lives in the Latin-1 Supplement block (U+0080–U+00FF) of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP, Plane 0).

What is the official Unicode name of Soft hyphen?

The Unicode Standard (version 18.0.0) names this character "SOFT HYPHEN". Its General_Category is Cf (Other, format).

What is the HTML code for Soft hyphen?

Use ­ or ­, or the named entity ­. In CSS, use content: "\00AD".

How do I type Soft hyphen in code?

JavaScript: "\u00AD". Python: "\u00AD". JSON and Java: "\u00AD". The UTF-8 byte sequence is C2 AD.

Is Soft hyphen an emoji?

No. Soft hyphen is a text symbol and renders as a monochrome glyph in the current font. Some platforms may offer an emoji variant when U+FE0F is appended.

Related symbols in Invisible & Spacing

View all invisible & spacing