Latin character Eszett (sharp S)
About this character
The character ß is known as Latin character Eszett (sharp S) and carries the Unicode code point U+00DF, which is 223 in decimal. It belongs to the Latin-1 Supplement block (U+0080–U+00FF), which gathers the accented letters of Western European languages along with the punctuation and symbols inherited from ISO 8859-1.
In memory, ß takes 2 bytes in UTF-8 (0xC3 0x9F) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x00DF). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ß
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | On Windows, hold Alt and type 223 on the numeric keypad. In Word or WordPad, type 00DF and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac using the ABC/US layout, ⌥ + S produces this character directly. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 00DF then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ß. Use \00DF in CSS, \u00DF in JavaScript and \u00DF in Python. |
| On this site | The simplest route is the Copy button above: the character goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. |
Keyboards that include ß
This character sits directly on the following ClavierVirtuel layouts, where you can click it with the mouse:
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+00DF |
| Unicode block | Latin-1 Supplement (U+0080–U+00FF) |
| Decimal | 223 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x00DF |
| Octal | 0337 |
| Binary | 11011111 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xC3 0x9F |
| UTF-16 units | 0x00DF |
| Named HTML entity | ß |
| Decimal HTML entity | ß |
| Hex HTML entity | ß |
| CSS escape | \00DF |
| JavaScript escape | \u00DF |
| Python escape | \u00DF |
| URL encoding | %C3%9F |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ß?
Its code point is U+00DF, which is 223 in decimal and 0337 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ß or ß.
Why does ß show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+00DF. The character is still in the text: switching to a font that covers the block (Noto, DejaVu or Segoe UI Symbol) makes it appear.
Can I use ß in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %C3%9F. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.