How do I type the ‗ double low line symbol?

On Windows, type 2017 and press Alt+X. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 2017. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.

What is the code for ‗?

Double Low Line is U+2017 and in LaTeX as \twolowline. In UTF-8 it takes 3 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.

Will ‗ survive being pasted anywhere?

Not always. Double Low Line is a compatibility character: any system that applies Unicode NFKC normalisation — search indexes, usernames, identifiers — replaces it with ̳. Use it for display, not where text is normalised.

U+2017 · Other punctuation

LaTeX

\twolowline

Double Low Line Symbol ‗

‗ is double low line, U+2017 — \twolowline in LaTeX. It was added in Unicode 1.1, and Unicode files it under Other punctuation.

Also known as

Unicode 1.0 called this character spacing double underscore. The standard renamed it later, but documents, fonts and font-editing tools from that era still use the old name.

What Unicode says about ‗

this is a spacing character

— annotation from the Unicode Standard, NamesList.txt

Codes & technical data

Unicode	`U+2017`
HTML hex	`‗`
HTML decimal	`‗`
CSS	`\2017`
JavaScript	`\u{2017}`
Python	`\U00002017`
Java / C#	`\u2017`
Rust	`\u{2017}`
Swift	`\u{2017}`
PHP	`\u{2017}`
URL encoded	`%E2%80%97`
UTF-8 bytes	`E2 80 97`
UTF-16 bytes	`2017`
Base64	`4oCX`
Decimal	`8215`
LaTeX	`\twolowline`
Decomposes to	̳ (compat form)
Category	Other punctuation (Po)
Introduced	Unicode 1.1

Will ‗ survive being pasted?

Normalisation. No. Anything that applies NFKC — search indexes, usernames, domain names, programming identifiers — rewrites ‗ as ̳. Safe for display, not for storage.
Legacy encodings. ‗ is Unicode-only — it has no Latin-1 equivalent, so a system stuck on an 8-bit encoding cannot represent it.
Size. 3 bytes in UTF-8. Character-limited fields — SMS, bios, some form validators — usually count bytes, not characters.

Unicode cross-references

The standard points readers of ‗ at these characters — usually because they look alike, or because one is the correct choice where the other is often used by mistake.

_U+005Flow line

Other line characters

Unicode names 6 characters ending in “line”. They differ by direction, weight or decoration rather than by meaning.

Nearby in General Punctuation

The typographic marks that word processors quietly substitute for their ASCII lookalikes — real quotation marks, en and em dashes, the ellipsis. It also holds the invisible characters: zero-width spaces, joiners and directional marks that do work without drawing anything.

All 71 characters in General Punctuation →

How to type ‗

Windows	Type `2017` then press `Alt`+`X`
macOS	Press `Ctrl`+`Cmd`+`Space`, then search for “double low line”
Linux	Press `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`U`, type `2017`, press `Enter`
HTML	`‗`

About Unicode’s Other punctuation category

Unicode files this under "other punctuation", the category for marks that are not brackets, dashes or quotes.

Frequently asked questions

How do I type the ‗ double low line symbol?: On Windows, type 2017 and press Alt+X. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 2017. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.
What is the code for ‗?: Double Low Line is U+2017 and in LaTeX as \twolowline. In UTF-8 it takes 3 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.
Will ‗ survive being pasted anywhere?: Not always. Double Low Line is a compatibility character: any system that applies Unicode NFKC normalisation — search indexes, usernames, identifiers — replaces it with ̳. Use it for display, not where text is normalised.