How do I type the ½ vulgar fraction one half symbol?

On Windows, type 00BD and press Alt+X. You can also hold Alt and type 189 on the numeric keypad. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 00bd. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.

What is the code for ½?

Vulgar Fraction One Half is U+00BD, written in HTML as &half;. In UTF-8 it takes 2 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.

Will ½ survive being pasted anywhere?

Not always. Vulgar Fraction One Half is a compatibility character: any system that applies Unicode NFKC normalisation — search indexes, usernames, identifiers — replaces it with 1⁄2. Use it for display, not where text is normalised.

U+00BD · Other number

HTML entity

&half;

Vulgar Fraction One Half Symbol ½

½ is vulgar fraction one half, U+00BD. Unicode records it as a compatibility form of 1⁄2 (fraction form). It was added in Unicode 1.1, and Unicode files it under Other number.

Also known as

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

Codes & technical data

Unicode	`U+00BD`
HTML hex	`½`
HTML decimal	`½`
CSS	`\00BD`
JavaScript	`\u{00BD}`
Python	`\U000000BD`
Java / C#	`\u00BD`
Rust	`\u{00bd}`
Swift	`\u{00BD}`
PHP	`\u{00BD}`
URL encoded	`%C2%BD`
UTF-8 bytes	`C2 BD`
UTF-16 bytes	`00BD`
Base64	`wr0=`
Decimal	`189`
HTML entity	`&half;`
Decomposes to	1⁄2 (fraction form)
Numeric value	1/2
Category	Other number (No)
Introduced	Unicode 1.1

Will ½ survive being pasted?

Normalisation. No. Anything that applies NFKC — search indexes, usernames, domain names, programming identifiers — rewrites ½ as 1⁄2. Safe for display, not for storage.
Legacy encodings. ½ exists in Latin-1 and Windows-1252, so even software that predates Unicode can store it.
Size. 2 bytes in UTF-8. Character-limited fields — SMS, bios, some form validators — usually count bytes, not characters.

Other half characters

Unicode names 10 characters ending in “half”. They differ by direction, weight or decoration rather than by meaning.

Nearby in Latin-1 Supplement

The upper half of ISO 8859-1: the accented letters and the symbols that Western European printing needed but ASCII had no room for. This is where ° ± × ÷ £ ¥ © ® ½ ¼ live, which makes it the most-copied symbol block in Unicode despite being one of the oldest.

All 29 characters in Latin-1 Supplement →

How to type ½

Windows	Type `00BD` then press `Alt`+`X`, or hold `Alt` and type `189` on the numeric keypad
macOS	Press `Ctrl`+`Cmd`+`Space`, then search for “vulgar fraction one half”
Linux	Press `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`U`, type `00bd`, press `Enter`
HTML	`&half;`

About Unicode’s Other number category

This is classified as a number that is not a plain digit — a fraction, a superscript figure, a circled or bracketed numeral. Software will not parse it as a number without being told to.

Frequently asked questions

How do I type the ½ vulgar fraction one half symbol?: On Windows, type 00BD and press Alt+X. You can also hold Alt and type 189 on the numeric keypad. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 00bd. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.
What is the code for ½?: Vulgar Fraction One Half is U+00BD, written in HTML as &half;. In UTF-8 it takes 2 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.
Will ½ survive being pasted anywhere?: Not always. Vulgar Fraction One Half is a compatibility character: any system that applies Unicode NFKC normalisation — search indexes, usernames, identifiers — replaces it with 1⁄2. Use it for display, not where text is normalised.