Shape Black Medium Small Square
About this character
The character ◾ is known as Shape Black Medium Small Square and carries the Unicode code point U+25FE, which is 9726 in decimal. It belongs to the Geometric Shapes block (U+25A0–U+25FF), which gathers squares, circles, triangles and diamonds used as bullets, markers or diagram elements.
In memory, ◾ takes 3 bytes in UTF-8 (0xE2 0x97 0xBE) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x25FE). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ◾
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | In Word or WordPad, type 25FE and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + ⌘ + Space and search for “Shape Black Medium Small Square”. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 25FE then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ◾. Use \25FE in CSS, \u25FE in JavaScript and \u25FE 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 ◾
This character is not on any common physical layout, so the Copy button above is the quickest way to get it into a document.
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+25FE |
| Unicode block | Geometric Shapes (U+25A0–U+25FF) |
| Decimal | 9726 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x25FE |
| Octal | 022776 |
| Binary | 10010111111110 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xE2 0x97 0xBE |
| UTF-16 units | 0x25FE |
| Named HTML entity | None |
| Decimal HTML entity | ◾ |
| Hex HTML entity | ◾ |
| CSS escape | \25FE |
| JavaScript escape | \u25FE |
| Python escape | \u25FE |
| URL encoding | %E2%97%BE |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ◾?
Its code point is U+25FE, which is 9726 in decimal and 022776 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ◾ or ◾.
Why does ◾ show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+25FE. 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 ◾ in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %E2%97%BE. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.