Ø / ø (O With a Slash): How to Type, Copy, and Use It
ø is a lowercase o with a slash through it. Its capital is Ø. It’s a letter of the Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese alphabets, standing for a rounded front vowel, and it’s one of the most mistaken characters around, endlessly confused with the empty set and the diameter sign.
If you just need the character, copy ø or Ø from the grid below, along with its HTML entity or URL code.
Below you’ll find how to type ø on every device, how it differs from the maths and engineering look-alikes, how to write it as “oe,” and how it behaves in links and code.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: click ø or Ø in the grid below.
- On Windows: hold Alt and type 0248 for ø (0216 for Ø).
- On a Mac: press Option + o for ø directly (Option + Shift + O for Ø).
- On a phone: press and hold the o key, then slide to ø.
- In a URL ø is written %C3%B8; in HTML it’s ø.
Click to copy: ø, and its codes
Grab the letter, the HTML entity, or the URL code
Table of Contents
Copy and paste ø
The two characters, with every code you’re likely to need in one row. Use the grid above to copy with a click; this table is the reference.
| Character | Name | Unicode | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ø | o with slash | U+00F8 | Alt + 0248 | Option + o | ø |
| Ø | O with slash | U+00D8 | Alt + 0216 | Option + Shift + O | Ø |
How to type ø on any device
ø sits in the old Latin range, so it’s easy to reach almost everywhere, and on a Mac it has a shortcut of its own.
Type ø on Windows
Turn on Num Lock, hold Alt, and type 0248 on the numeric keypad for ø, or 0216 for Ø. The top-row numbers won’t work; it has to be the keypad. On the US-International layout, the right Alt (AltGr) plus l also gives ø. Or press Windows + . and pick it from the symbol panel.
Type ø on Mac
The Mac gives ø its own shortcut: press Option + o for ø, and Option + Shift + O for Ø. There’s no two-step dead-key dance for this one. You can also add the Norwegian or Danish keyboard, where ø has its own key.
Type ø on iPhone and Android
Press and hold the o key on the on-screen keyboard, then slide onto ø and lift your finger. Nothing to set up, and it works the same in nearly every app.
Type ø in Microsoft Word
Type the hex code 00F8 and press Alt + X, and it becomes ø (use 00D8 for Ø). The Windows Alt code works here too, and on a Mac, Option + o works directly inside Word.
Type ø on Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00f8, then press Enter. With a Compose key, it’s Compose, then /, then o.
Type ø in Excel and Google Sheets
Use the Alt code on the keypad, or the UNICHAR formula: =UNICHAR(248) returns ø and =UNICHAR(216) returns Ø. The same works in Google Sheets.
ø vs the empty set ∅ and the diameter sign ⌀
ø is one of the most mistaken characters in Unicode, because several symbols look like a circle with a line through it and they aren’t the same thing.
The empty set ∅, used in maths for a set with nothing in it, is a separate character (U+2205), not the letter ø. There’s a nice twist: the mathematician André Weil chose the ∅ symbol because it looked like the Norwegian Ø, so the letter inspired the symbol, yet the two remain distinct. The diameter sign ⌀ (U+2300) is another. In engineering drawings it goes before a measurement, as in ⌀20 mm, to mean “diameter,” and because it’s awkward to type, people often substitute ø or Ø, which reads fine to a person but is the wrong character.
A slashed zero, a 0 with a stroke used to tell zero from the letter O, is yet another look-alike. If precision matters, in maths, CAD, or code, pick the right one rather than the Danish letter.
| What you want | Character | Unicode |
|---|---|---|
| The Danish / Norwegian letter | ø / Ø | U+00F8 / U+00D8 |
| The empty set (maths) | ∅ | U+2205 |
| The diameter sign (drawings) | ⌀ | U+2300 |
Writing ø as “oe”: the substitution
When ø can’t be typed, Danish and Norwegian fall back on oe, much as German uses oe for ö. So a name like Nørgaard can appear as Noergaard.
The clearest frozen example is the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted. The unit of magnetic field strength named after him, the oersted (symbol Oe), spells his ø as oe, which is why a magnetics textbook writes oersted, not ørsted. The substitution isn’t ideal for modern Danish, but it’s the standard way to render ø where the character isn’t available.
ø vs ö, and how to say it
ø and ö sound almost identical but are written differently and belong to different languages. ø, with a slash, is Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese; ö, with two dots, is German, Swedish, and others. A Dane writing ø and a German writing ö land on nearly the same rounded vowel.
To make the sound, round your lips as if to say “oh,” then try to say “eh.” That rounded front vowel is ø, close to the French eu in peu. For the two-dot version and its own quirks, see the ö guide.
A letter that means “island”
Here’s a fact that sticks: in Danish and Norwegian, ø on its own is a word, and it means “island.” So a single-letter name on a map is simply “the island.”
The letter also sits near the end of the alphabet in both languages, after æ and before å, so a Danish list ending in Ø-words comes almost last. You’ll meet it in names and places like Ørsted, Tromsø, and Søren, and in smørrebrød, the open sandwich.
ø in web addresses, URLs, and email
You can use ø in a domain name. It’s stored as a Punycode address beginning with xn--, which the browser turns back into ø, so a Norwegian or Danish domain can look like a run of random letters in its raw form.
Inside a URL path or query, ø is percent-encoded as %C3%B8, the two UTF-8 bytes (0xC3 and 0xB8) for the character. The capital Ø is %C3%98. A link with %C3%B8 in it has an ø inside.
Email is more cautious. An address can carry ø through the same system, but many servers still stumble over non-ASCII addresses, so Nordic businesses often register the oe spelling as well.
ø in code and passwords
In code, ø is an ordinary Unicode character. The usual snag is encoding: a file saved as UTF-8 but read as Latin-1 turns ø into ø, the classic sign of a crossed encoding rather than a broken character.
Passwords are the place to be careful. A ø in a password can lock you out on another device, because a different keyboard or login form may encode it differently and produce different bytes. For a password you’ll type across systems, plain ASCII is safer.
When you want ø in code, the escapes help: \u00f8 in JavaScript, Java, JSON, and Python, and ø or ø in HTML.
Copy-paste HTML codes
Everything you need for the web and for links, in one place. Click a cell and copy.
| Character | Named entity | Numeric entity | URL (percent) code |
|---|---|---|---|
| ø | ø | ø | %C3%B8 |
| Ø | Ø | Ø | %C3%98 |
In a CSS content value, use the escaped code point \00f8. Serve the page as UTF-8 so the character holds. For the two-dot ö, the wider o family, and every other mark, see the full letters-with-accents list.
Troubleshooting
“My ø shows up as ø or a box.”
The text was saved as UTF-8 but is being read as an older encoding like Latin-1. Set the file or page to UTF-8 and the ø returns. The ø pattern is the classic UTF-8-read-as-Latin-1 mix-up.
“Alt + 0248 just beeps or types nothing.”
Num Lock is off, you’re using the top-row numbers, or the laptop has no keypad. Turn Num Lock on and use the keypad. No keypad? Use the copy grid, US-International, or Windows + .
“I used ø for a diameter, and an engineer complained.”
They’re right that the proper diameter sign is ⌀ (U+2300), not the letter ø. Many drawing programs accept ø as a stand-in, but if the document needs to be correct, copy the real ⌀ from the table above.
“A password with ø won’t log me in elsewhere.”
Different keyboards and login forms can encode ø differently, so the bytes may not match what you first set. For a password you’ll type on many devices, stick to plain ASCII.
FAQ
How do I type ø?
On Windows, Alt + 0248 (Alt + 0216 for Ø). On a Mac, Option + o. On a phone, long-press the o key. Or click it in the grid above.
Is ø the same as the empty set ∅?
No. ø is the Danish and Norwegian letter (U+00F8); ∅ is the mathematical empty set (U+2205). They look alike, and the ∅ symbol was even inspired by the letter Ø, but they’re different characters.
What’s the difference between ø and ö?
The mark and the language. ø has a slash and is Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese; ö has two dots and is German, Swedish, and others. They sound almost the same but are different letters.
How do you pronounce ø?
Round your lips for “oh” and then try to say “eh.” That rounded front vowel is ø, close to the French eu in peu. It’s a single sound, not o plus a slash spoken separately.
How do I write ø in a URL or HTML?
In a URL, ø is %C3%B8 (Ø is %C3%98), and domains store it as Punycode beginning with xn--. In HTML, use ø or ø.
