Character entity references, or entities for short, provide a method of entering characters that cannot be expressed in the document's character encoding or that cannot easily be entered on a keyboard.
I use them on a regular basis but consistently forced to look them up. In the effort to remember these, I'm making a post to reference the most important. (defining important as those I use the most)
| Result | Description | Name | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| non-breaking space | |   | |
| & | ampersand | & | & |
| < | less-than | < | < |
| > | greater-than | > | > |
| © | copyright | © | © |
| ® | registered trademark | ® | ® |
| ™ | trademark | ™ | |
| ° | degree | ° | ° |
| ¼ | fraction 1/4 | ¼ | ¼ |
| ½ | fraction 1/2 | ½ | ½ |
| ¾ | fraction 3/4 | ¾ | ¾ |
| – | en dash | – | – |
| — | em dash | — | — |
| ‘ | left single quotation | ‘ | ‘ |
| ’ | right single quotation | ’ | ’ |
| ‚ | single low-9 quotation | ‚ | ‚ |
| “ | left double quotation | “ | “ |
| ” | right double quotation | ” | ” |
| ‹ | single left-pointing angle quotation | ‹ | ‹ |
| › | single right-pointing angle quotation | › | › |
| « | left angle quotation | « | « |
| » | right angle quotation | » | » |
For a complete list including French characters visit the W3Schools website.