Tool

Degree Symbol (°) to Copy

Tap any character to copy it. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Or type here and copy the line

Where can I get a degree symbol to copy?

Use the buttons above — each one puts the character straight on your clipboard. The degree sign is Unicode U+00B0, and it is not the same as the masculine ordinal indicator º or the ring above ˚, both of which look almost identical and behave differently in search and sorting.

Which character you just copied

The degree sign is U+00B0. In HTML it is ° or °. In a spreadsheet formula it is CHAR(176) in Excel or CHAR(176) in Google Sheets.

It is used for three unrelated things, all of which happen to be called degrees: temperature on the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, angles, and geographic coordinates. Kelvin is the exception — it takes a bare K and never a degree sign, because it was redefined in 1967 as an absolute unit rather than a scale of degrees.

The lookalikes

Three characters that are nearly indistinguishable at text size and are not interchangeable.
Character	Code point	Name	Belongs in
°	U+00B0	Degree sign	Temperature, angles, coordinates
º	U+00BA	Masculine ordinal indicator	Spanish and Portuguese ordinals — 1º
˚	U+02DA	Ring above	A diacritical mark, as in Å
∘	U+2218	Ring operator	Mathematics — function composition

The ordinal indicator is the one that causes real trouble, because it is easy to reach on Spanish and Portuguese keyboards and sits at nearly the same height as the degree sign. Text containing a mixture will not search or sort consistently, and a screen reader announces the two differently.

Writing it correctly

20 °C — the international standard: space between number and unit, degree sign attached to the letter.
20°C — standard American practice. Also fine, as long as you are consistent.
20° C — incorrect under both conventions. The degree sign belongs to the C.
20° — correct when the scale is obvious from context.
293 K — no degree sign, and the space stays.
45° and 51°30′26″ N — angles and coordinates close the space up entirely.

If you need to type it rather than copy it

The shortcut for every platform, plus the lookalike traps in more detail, is in how to type the degree symbol. The short version: Option + Shift + 8 on a Mac, Alt + 0176 on Windows using the numeric keypad, and press and hold the zero on a phone's number keyboard.

If you use it dozens of times a day, a text replacement is worth setting up once — macOS and iOS share them through iCloud, and Android has the same idea in its personal dictionary.

Common questions

Which character is the real degree symbol?

U+00B0, the degree sign. It is the one used for temperature, angles and geographic coordinates. Two others render almost identically: the masculine ordinal indicator º at U+00BA, which belongs in Spanish and Portuguese ordinals, and the ring above ˚ at U+02DA, which is a diacritic.

Why does my pasted degree symbol not match a search?

Almost always because it is a lookalike rather than the degree sign. A search for ° will not find º, so a spreadsheet or document containing a mixture behaves inconsistently. In Excel or Google Sheets the UNICODE function returns 176 for the correct character and 186 for the ordinal indicator.

What is the keyboard shortcut?

On a Mac, Option and Shift and 8. On Windows, Alt and 0176 typed on the numeric keypad — the number row will not work. On a phone, press and hold the zero key on the number keyboard and pick the degree sign from the popup that appears.

Does this tool send anything anywhere?

No. The characters are already in the page and the copy happens in your browser using the clipboard API. Nothing you type into the scratch field leaves your device, and there is no analytics on this site at all.

What are the prime and double prime for?

Minutes and seconds of arc, in coordinates and angles — 51°30′26″ N. They are ′ and ″, not an apostrophe and a quotation mark, though the wrong characters get substituted constantly. Like the degree sign, they look close enough to pass and sort differently.

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