U00B6

The U+00B6 PILCROW SIGN, commonly known as the pilcrow or paragraph sign, is a typographic symbol used to denote a paragraph boundary. Its name and code point reflect a long history in manuscript and typesetting traditions, where a pilcrow mark indicated the start of a new paragraph.

Encoding and representation: In Unicode, the character is named PILCROW SIGN and has the code point U+00B6. In HTML it can be written as ¶ or ¶. On many keyboards, it can be inserted by using a special input method, such as Alt+0182 on Windows or through Unicode input methods on other systems.

Usage and context: The pilcrow is primarily a formatting mark in editing and proofreading, used to indicate where a paragraph begins or ends when formatting marks are shown. In ordinary prose, it is not typically part of the printed text, but it remains a useful symbol in editorial workflows and some typography contexts. It should not be confused with the section sign (§), which has a different meaning in legal and scholarly texts.

Variants and typography: The glyph appears in various fonts with differences in stroke weight and flourish, but the code point remains U+00B6. In digital text, the pilcrow is less common in body content but is still encountered in style guides, templates, and software that represents formatting marks. There is also a distinct Unicode character U+2029, the PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR, which serves a different typographic purpose.