U+00A8 · Latin-1 Supplement

Diaeresis ¨

This is the diaeresis or umlaut mark on its own, two dots with no base letter. As a spacing character it is used to show the mark itself, for example in linguistics or when explaining how accents work. To put two dots over a letter in normal text, use the precomposed letter (ä, ö, ü) or the combining diaeresis instead.

WindowsAlt 0168

UnicodeU+00A8

HTML¨

¨U+00A8

Character codes

Unicode code point	`U+00A8`
Decimal	`168`
HTML named entity	`¨`
HTML (hex)	`¨`
HTML (decimal)	`¨`
CSS	`\00A8`
JavaScript	`\u00A8`
Python	`\u00A8`
UTF-8 bytes	`C2 A8`
UTF-16	`00A8`
URL-encoded	`%C2%A8`

Character details

Official name	DIAERESIS
Unicode block	Latin-1 Supplement
General category	Modifier Symbol (Sk)
SymbolHero category	Punctuation
Decomposition	`<compat> U+0020 U+0308`
Emoji	No

How to type ¨

Windows

Hold Alt and type 0168 on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on), then release Alt. Alt 0168 uses the Windows-1252 code page.
In Microsoft Word or Outlook: type 00A8 then press Alt + X.
Open Character Map (search “Character Map” in Start), tick “Advanced view”, search for “diaeresis”, then Select and Copy.

Mac

Press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer, search “diaeresis”, and double-click the result.
With the Unicode Hex Input keyboard enabled (System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources), hold Option and type 00A8.

iPhone & Android

Tap Copy at the top of this page, then long-press where you want it and choose Paste.

Docs & web

Google Docs: Insert → Special characters, then search “diaeresis” or enter U+00A8.
HTML: ¨ or ¨
Excel / Google Sheets: =UNICHAR(168)

Examples

The mark ¨ over a vowel is called an umlaut in German
Keyboard legend: ¨ dead key
Explaining naïve: the ¨ splits the vowels

Good to know

Don’t mix it up: Often confused with the combining diaeresis (U+0308), which attaches to the preceding letter instead of standing alone.

Tip: Do not type a letter followed by this character to fake ë or ü; the result will not be recognized by spell-checkers or search.

Display: the character itself is always the same code point, but its shape comes from the font on the device showing it. If you see an empty box, the font lacks this glyph—the text is still correct.