Unicode subscripts and superscripts

s the Unicode "superscript" and "subscript" characters are actually numerator and denominator glyphs.|class=skin-invert-image The intended use which are aligned with the cap line and the baseline, respectively. When used with the solidus or the Fraction Slash, they produce an almost typographically correct diagonal fraction, such as for the glyph. Super and subscript markup does not produce a correct fraction (compare markup with precomposed ). The change also makes the superscript letters useful for ordinal indicators, more closely matching the ª and º characters. Unicode intended that diagonal fractions be rendered by a different mechanism: the fraction slash U+2044 is visually similar to the solidus, but when used with the ordinary digits (not the superscripts and subscripts), it instructs the layout system that a fraction such as is to be rendered using automatic glyph substitution. User-end support was quite poor for a number of years, but fonts, browsers, word processors, desktop publishing software and others increasingly support the intended Unicode behavior. This browser and your default font render the sequence as . (See Slash (punctuation)#Fractions for rendering in various other fonts.) ==Superscripts and subscripts block==

The most common superscript digits (1, 2, and 3) were included in ISO-8859-1 and were therefore carried over into those code points in the Latin-1 range of Unicode. The remainder were placed along with basic arithmetical symbols, and later some Latin subscripts, in a dedicated block at to U+209F. The table below shows these characters together. Each superscript or subscript character is preceded by a baseline to show the height of subscripting/superscripting. Six code points in the "Superscripts and Subscripts" block are unassigned, and remain available for future characters. three of these (209D, 209E, and 209F) were provisionally assigned to new subscript characters, namely Latin lowercase , , and . ==Other superscript and subscript characters==

Unicode also includes codepoints for subscript and superscript characters that are intended for semantic usage, in the following blocks: ;Superscript • The Latin-1 Supplement block contains the feminine and masculine ordinal indicators and . • The Latin Extended-C block contains one superscript, . • The Latin Extended-D block contains seven superscripts: . • The Latin Extended-E block contains five superscripts: . • The Latin Extended-F block is entirely superscript IPA letters: . • The Spacing Modifier Letters block has superscripted letters and symbols used for phonetic transcription: . • The Phonetic Extensions block has several superscripted letters and symbols: Latin/IPA , Greek , Cyrillic , other . These are intended to indicate secondary articulation. • The Phonetic Extensions Supplement block has several more: Latin/IPA , Greek . • The Cyrillic Extended-B block contains two Cyrillic superscripts: . • The Cyrillic Extended-D block contains many Cyrillic superscripts: . • The Georgian block contains one superscripted Mkhedruli letter: . • The Kanbun block has superscripted annotation characters used in Japanese copies of Classical Chinese texts: . • The Tifinagh block has one superscript letter : . • The Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and its Extended blocks contain several mostly consonant-only letters to indicate syllable coda called Finals, along with some characters that indicate syllable medial known as Medials: Main block ; Extended block: . ;Combining superscript • The Combining Diacritical Marks block contains medieval superscript letter diacritics. These letters are written directly above other letters appearing in medieval Germanic manuscripts, and so these glyphs do not include spacing, for example uͤ. They are shown here over the dotted circle placeholder ◌: . • The Combining Diacritical Marks Extended block contains three combining insular letters for the Middle English Ormulum, . • The Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement block contains additional medieval superscript letter diacritics, enough to complete the basic lowercase Latin alphabet except for , and , a few small capitals and ligatures (), and additional letters: , Greek . • The Cyrillic Extended-A and -B blocks contains multiple medieval superscript letter diacritics, enough to complete the basic lowercase Cyrillic alphabet used in Church Slavonic texts, also includes an additional ligature (ст): . • The Cyrillic Extended-D block has one additional combining character, that being і: . ;Subscript • The Latin Extended-C block contains one subscript, . • The Phonetic Extensions block has several subscripted letters and symbols: Latin/IPA and Greek . • The Cyrillic Extended-D block also contains many Cyrillic subscripts: . ;Combining subscript • The Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement block contains a combining subscript: . • The Combining Diacritical Marks Extended block contains two combining letters for linguistic transcriptions of Scots, . ==Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and IPA tables==

Consolidated, the Unicode standard contains superscript and subscript versions of a subset of Latin, Greek and Cyrillic letters. Here they are arranged in alphabetical order for comparison (or for copy and paste convenience). Since these characters appear in different Unicode ranges, they may not appear to be the same size or position due to font substitution by the browser. Shaded cells mark petite capitals that are not very distinct from minuscules in Roman typeface, but they may be distinct in italic typeface, as is used in some phonetic notation. Little punctuation is encoded. Parentheses are shown in the basic superscript block above, and the exclamation mark is shown in the IPA table below. In a supporting font, a question mark may be created with a superscript gelded question mark and a combining dot below: . • Superscript versions of petite capital A, D, E and P, of ƀ, and subscript versions of w, y and z are scheduled to be released with version 18 of the Unicode Standard. § Cyrillic 𞀹 𞀻 𞁀, ◌ⷡ ◌ⷩ ◌ⷦ ◌ⷮ ◌ꙷ and 𞁞 might be substituted for these letters. Some of these superscript capitals are small caps in the source documents in the Unicode proposals. Superscript Ä, Ö, Ü (in parentheses) are composed of the base letter and a combining tréma. Except for the iota subscript, which has use in Greek text, the modifier Greek letters are intended as phonetic characters in Latin-script text. Shaded cells are indistinguishable from Latin letters, and so would not be expected to have distinctive use in Latin text or to be supported by Unicode. • Superscript versions of Greek psi and omega are scheduled for version 18 of the Unicode Standard. ;Secondary superscripting: Spacing diacritics, as in , cannot be secondarily superscripted in plain text: . (In this instance, the old IPA letter for , , has a superscript variant in Unicode, U+1DB5 , but that is not generally the case.) ;Retired IPA: Among older IPA letters, the most common letters with palatal hook are supported; they are displayed in the table above. IPA once had an idiosyncratic curl on some of the palatalized letters: these are the fricative letters and the homologous affricates. Their superscript forms have been accepted for version 18 of the Unicode Standard. (The similar lateral fricative is not supported.) Old-style IPA click letters, voiceless implosives, and the retired letters and have also been accepted for version 18 of the Unicode Standard. as well those found in as in Sinological phonetic notation, are as follows. Recently retired alternative letters such as are also supported; they are set off in parentheses and placed below the modern IPA letters. Asterisks mark superscript letters scheduled for release with Unicode 18 in September 2026. ;Rhotic vowels: The precomposed Unicode rhotic vowel letters are not directly supported. The rhotic diacritic U+02DE should be used instead: . ;Retired IPA: Among older letters, (U+1D1C), a graphic variant of , is supported at (U+1DB8). The retired and later briefly resurrected vowel letter (U+029A) is not supported as a superscript, only its reversed replacement is. ;Para-IPA: Among para-IPA letters, Sinological superscript have been accepted for version 18 of the Unicode Standard, as have Sinological and the English dictionary and phonetics symbols and . The Americanist conventions and do not have superscripts encoded or scheduled. Length marks The two length marks are also supported: These are used to add length to another superscript, such as or for long aspiration. Wildcards Superscript wildcards (full caps) are largely supported: e.g. (prenasalized consonant), (prestopped nasal), (fricative release), (sibilant release, added to Unicode in 2025), (epenthetic plosive), (tone-bearing syllable), (liquid or lateral release), (rhotic or resonant release), (off-glide/diphthong), (fleeting vowel). Superscript for fleeting/epenthetic click is not included in the Unicode Standard. Other basic Latin superscript wildcards for tone and weak indeterminate sounds, as described in , are mostly supported. (See table in the Latin section.) Combining marks and subscripts In addition to superscripts, a very few IPA letters beyond the basic Latin alphabet have combining forms or are supported as subscripts: ==Composite characters==

Primarily for compatibility with earlier character sets, Unicode contains a number of characters that compose super- and subscripts with other symbols. • The Miscellaneous Technical block has one additional subscript, a subscript 10 (), for the purpose of scientific notation. • The Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and its Extended blocks contain several letters composed with superscripted letters to indicate extended sound values: Main block , Extended block . ==Notes==