Paragraph Symbol (¶): How to Type, Copy, and Use It
The paragraph symbol, ¶, is the backwards-P mark called the pilcrow. Most people meet it in Microsoft Word, where it suddenly appears at the end of every line, and their first question is how to make it go away. It also marks paragraphs in citations and editing. It isn’t on an English keyboard, so this page covers how to type it, how to switch those Word marks off, and where the odd little symbol came from.
If you just need the mark, copy ¶ (or the section sign §) from the grid below. If you’re trying to remove it from your Word document, jump to the section right after the shortcuts — that’s the fix.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: click ¶ in the grid below.
- Hide it in Word: press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to toggle the ¶ formatting marks off.
- On Windows: hold Alt and type 0182.
- On a Mac: press Option + 7.
- In HTML: write ¶ (or ¶).
Table of Contents
Copy and paste the paragraph symbol
The pilcrow and the section sign beside it, with the codes you’re likely to need. Use the grid above to copy with one click; this table is the reference.
| Symbol | Name | Unicode | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ¶ | pilcrow | U+00B6 | Alt + 0182 | Option + 7 | ¶ |
| § | section sign | U+00A7 | Alt + 0167 | Option + 6 | § |
Neither is on a standard keyboard, so each takes a shortcut, a code, or a copy. The sections below cover each device, then the question most people are really here for: the ¶ marks in Word.
How to type the paragraph symbol on any device
Type ¶ on Windows
Turn on Num Lock, hold Alt, and type 0182 on the numeric keypad for ¶. On a laptop with no keypad, press Windows + . for the emoji and symbol panel and search “pilcrow” or “paragraph.”
Type ¶ on Mac
On a Mac, press Option + 7 for ¶. It’s a single shortcut with no dead-key step. The section sign § is next door at Option + 6, since the two commonly appear together in citations.
Type ¶ on iPhone and Android
Open the symbols keyboard (the 123 then #+= keys); ¶ is on the symbols screen, sometimes as a long-press on the & key. If you can’t find it, search the emoji and symbol keyboard, or copy it from the grid above.
Type ¶ in Microsoft Word
Two different things here. To insert the character, type 00B6 then press Alt + X, or use Alt + 0182. To show or hide the formatting marks (the ¶ at every paragraph end), press Ctrl + Shift + 8 — that’s the toggle nearly everyone is looking for, and it’s covered in full below.
Type ¶ on Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00b6, then Enter. That Unicode input works in most GTK and Qt apps.
Add ¶ in HTML and CSS
In HTML, ¶ is ¶ or the numeric ¶ (§ is §). In CSS, a ¶ in a content value is the escaped code point \00B6.
How to turn off (or on) the ¶ marks in Word
This is why most people search for the paragraph symbol: Word is showing a ¶ at the end of every paragraph, dots between words, and little arrows, and it won’t stop. The good news is that it’s a display setting, not damage to your document — those marks never print and aren’t really in the text. To switch them off, press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (on a Mac, Cmd + 8). Press the same keys again to bring them back.
You can also click the ¶ button on Word’s Home tab (in the Paragraph group) to toggle them. If Ctrl + Shift + 8 doesn’t stick, it’s because a specific mark is forced on: go to File → Options → Display and, under “Always show these formatting marks,” untick Paragraph marks (and anything else you don’t want). That overrides the toggle.
Why does Word even show them? Because the marks reveal the hidden structure of a document — where paragraphs really end, where you have double spaces, tabs, or stray blank lines. Editors and anyone fixing messy formatting turn them on deliberately. So they’re a feature, not a fault: off for normal writing, on when you’re hunting down a layout problem.
| Mark | Means |
|---|---|
| ¶ | end of a paragraph |
| · (dot) | a space |
| → | a tab |
| ¤ | a non-breaking space |
The pilcrow: where the paragraph mark got its name
The symbol’s proper name, pilcrow, is one of the strangest words in typography — and it’s a corruption of “paragraph” itself. The Greek paragraphos (“written beside”) became the Old French paragraphe, which English mangled over the centuries into pargraf, pylcrafte, and finally pilcrow. So “pilcrow” and “paragraph” are the same word that drifted apart.
The shape comes from somewhere else. It started as the letter C — for the Latin capitulum, “little head” or “chapter” — which scribes drew to mark a new train of thought. Over time they added a vertical stroke or two and filled it in, and the reversed, decorated C became the ¶ we have now. That’s why the pilcrow looks like a backwards P with an extra leg: it’s really an ornamented C wearing a disguise.
The pilcrow used to be the paragraph
Here’s the history that explains why paragraphs look the way they do. In medieval manuscripts, text ran on continuously with no line breaks — parchment was expensive, so scribes didn’t waste space starting new lines. Instead, they marked each new section of argument with a ¶ dropped inline, right in the middle of the running text. The pilcrow was the paragraph break.
These marks were often added afterward by a specialist called a rubricator, who went through in red ink filling in pilcrows and capitals (which is where the word “rubric” comes from, from Latin ruber, red). Eventually printers found it faster to just leave a gap where the pilcrow would go and start a new line — and that blank space, later an indent, became the modern paragraph. So the indented paragraph you use today is literally the ghost of a pilcrow that never got drawn.
¶ in citation and proofreading
Away from Word, the pilcrow still does real work. In citations, it points to a specific paragraph — useful for sources that have no page numbers, like web pages or court opinions. APA style, for instance, lets you cite an unnumbered paragraph as (Smith, 2020, ¶ 4) or “para. 4,” and legal writing uses ¶ to pin down a paragraph within a section (§ 5, ¶ 2).
The pilcrow is also a classic proofreading mark. An editor writes a ¶ in the margin to say “start a new paragraph here,” and the instruction “no ¶” (or “run in”) means the opposite: join this to the previous paragraph. So the same little symbol that clutters your Word screen is a precise editing tool on paper.
¶ vs §: paragraph mark versus section sign
The pilcrow ¶ and the section sign § are a matched pair that constantly get confused. The ¶ marks a paragraph; the § marks a numbered section of a document or law. In a legal citation they work together — the § picks the section, the ¶ picks the paragraph inside it — so § 12, ¶ 3 means “section 12, paragraph 3.”
| Symbol | Name | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| ¶ | pilcrow | a paragraph |
| § | section sign | a numbered section |
If you’re working with the section sign too, its own guide covers the citation rules and its history: see the section symbol guide.
¶ in code and URLs
In a URL, ¶ is percent-encoded as %C2%B6 (its two UTF-8 bytes). In code, the escape is \u00B6 in JavaScript, Java, JSON, and Python. If ¶ ever shows as garbled characters or a box, the page is being read in the wrong encoding — serve it as UTF-8 and it renders correctly.
Copy-paste HTML codes
Every code for the pilcrow and the section sign in one place. Click a cell and copy.
| Symbol | Named entity | Numeric entity | URL (percent) code |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¶ | ¶ | ¶ | %C2%B6 |
| § | § | § | %C2%A7 |
In a CSS content value, use \00B6 for ¶. For typing symbols across platforms, see the [keyboard shortcuts for symbols](/keyboard-shortcuts-for-symbols/) hub, and for every Alt code the [symbol Alt codes list](/symbol-alt-codes-list/).
Troubleshooting
How do I get rid of the ¶ marks in Word?
Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (Cmd + 8 on a Mac) to hide the formatting marks. If they stay, go to File → Options → Display and untick Paragraph marks under “Always show these formatting marks.” They never print regardless.
My ¶ shows as a box or garbled text
That’s an encoding mismatch: the UTF-8 bytes for ¶ are being read as an older encoding. Set the file, database, and page charset to UTF-8 and ¶ displays correctly.
Alt + 0182 isn’t working
Make sure Num Lock is on and you’re using the numeric keypad, not the top-row numbers. On a laptop without a keypad, use Windows + . and search “pilcrow,” or copy ¶ from the grid above.
FAQ
How do I type the paragraph symbol?
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0182. On a Mac, press Option + 7. In Word, type 00B6 then Alt + X. In HTML, write ¶. Or click ¶ in the grid above.
How do I remove the paragraph marks in Word?
Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to toggle them off (Cmd + 8 on Mac), or click the ¶ button on the Home tab. They’re only a display aid and never print.
What is the paragraph symbol called?
The pilcrow. The name is a worn-down form of “paragraph,” and the shape began as a decorated letter C for the Latin capitulum, “chapter.”
What’s the difference between ¶ and §?
¶ (the pilcrow) marks a paragraph; § (the section sign) marks a numbered section. In citations they pair up, as in § 5, ¶ 2.
How do I write ¶ in HTML?
Use ¶ or ¶. In a URL, ¶ is %C2%B6.
