Keyboard Shortcuts for Ampersand Symbol

Ampersand is part of number 7 key on most of the general English keyboard layout. You can use “Shift + 7” keys to type & symbol. It is widely used for the purpose of “and” as well as in the escape entities to type special characters in HTML.

Shortcuts Summary for Ampersand Symbol

Typing Ampersand in Windows

You have multiple ways to type & symbol in Windows based documents like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.

• Hold alt key and type 0038 from the number pad on your keyboard to produce &.
• Alternatively, on Word documents you can type the hexadecimal code 0026 using normal number keys and then press alt and x keys. This will convert the code into & symbol for you.
• You can also insert & symbol from the “Insert > Symbols” menu in documents.
• Last option is to open Character Map app and search for ampersand symbol to insert on your documents.

Typing Ampersand in Mac

• On macOS, toggle the keyboard to Unicode Hex Input and type option + 0026 to make & symbol.
• Alternatively, press “Control + Command + Spacebar” to open Character Viewer utility. Search for & symbol under “Punctuation” group.
• When you are in Pages or other default apps, go to “Edit > Insert Emoji & Symbols” menu to open Character Viewer.

Insert Ampersand in HTML, CSS and JS

Ampersand is used as a modifier symbol in most of the web languages like PHP. So you can’t use the symbol just typing and you need to use escape string to differentiate & symbol from other part of the code.

• In HTML you can use HTML entity name & amp;or use decimal value like & # 38; or hexadecimal value like & # x0026; to type & symbol. Remember to use the shortcuts without any spaces.
• In CSS use the escape character \0026 and in JavaScript you can use \u0026 to make &.

Other Ampersand Unicode Symbols

There are also few other ampersand symbols in Unicode. Below is the list with alt and option code shortcuts for Windows and Mac respectively.

Browser Display

Size and Font Variation

You can adjust the size and font of & symbols on your documents like other text content.