Degree Symbol — Copy and Paste

Windows (numeric keypad)

Hold Alt and type 0176 on the numeric keypad

Windows (no numeric keypad)

In Word, type 00B0 then press Alt + X, or use Character Map

Mac

Option + Shift + 8 on a US keyboard layout

iPhone / iPad

Hold 0, then slide to °

Android

Long-press 0, or open the symbols keyboard

Google Docs

Insert → Special characters, then search for degree

The degree symbol ° is Unicode U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN. It marks temperature, angles, and geographic coordinates. It is different from the masculine ordinal indicator º (U+00BA).

The copy button on this page is the reliable path when a keyboard shortcut is missing. U+00B0 is a single character. It is not a superscript zero, not a masculine ordinal º (U+00BA), not a ring above, and not the word “degrees” spelled out. Temperature, angles, and latitude/longitude are the usual jobs. In 37°C or 90° the mark sits against the number; a space before C or F is a house-style choice. Geographic minutes and seconds use other prime marks; do not reuse the degree sign for those. HTML can use ° or the literal character. CSS can use the escape shown in the table.

Windows with a numeric keypad: hold Alt and type 0176. Laptops without a keypad can use Character Map, or in Word type 00B0 then Alt+X. Mac US layout: Option+Shift+8. iPhone and iPad: press and hold 0, then slide to °. Android: long-press 0 or open the symbols page. Google Docs: Insert → Special characters and search for degree. Excel often accepts a paste, CHAR(176) on common Windows builds, or the same Alt code. If a cell shows a box, the font lacks DEGREE SIGN; switch the font rather than inventing a lookalike.

People confuse the degree symbol with the masculine ordinal because both can look like a small circle. Ordinals belong in some Romance-language abbreviations (1º). Degrees belong on temperatures and angles. Using º for Celsius is a common paste error and will fail some data validators. A superscript o typed as a letter is another lookalike and is worse for search. Copy from this page when the destination must store U+00B0. Screen readers may say “degree sign”; that is expected.

Science and math contexts sometimes prefer markup: LaTeX has ^\circ in math mode, and SI writing puts a space before the unit in some guides. Follow the style you were given. This page will not convert 37 C into 37°C automatically; it copies the mark. Combining the mark with a letter C is still two characters. Unicode also has dedicated degree Celsius and degree Fahrenheit compatibility characters; many fonts draw them poorly, so a degree sign plus C or F is the usual plain-text choice.

Related LiteralKit pages include superscript generators for true raised digits and an em dash copy board for a different punctuation mark. Neither replaces U+00B0. If you need a raised circle for a footnote, that is still not a degree sign. If you need a temperature emoji, that is an emoji, not this character. Keep the jobs separate so a later parser can find temperatures.

Some keyboards in European layouts expose ° more directly; US layout users rely on Option+Shift+8 or copy. Remote desktops can swallow Alt codes. When a shortcut fails, paste. When a PDF copies a lookalike, paste the string into a character inspector (LiteralKit’s symbol identifier) to see whether you actually have U+00B0. That check saves a broken CSV of weather data.

Accessibility and encoding: UTF-8 encodes the degree sign as two bytes, C2 B0. Latin-1 also has it at 0xB0, which is why old Windows Alt 0176 still works. If a file was saved as a different code page, the mark can become ð or a box. Re-save as UTF-8 rather than approximating with a space-o. Do not use a period over a letter as a fake degree in scientific text.

When you publish a how-to, list the OS shortcut and the Unicode name. “Copy the little circle” is how the ordinal mix-up starts. This board shows the glyph, U+00B0, HTML, CSS, and Alt 0176 on one screen so you can pick the form the destination accepts. Try a paste into the actual form—chat, spreadsheet, or game—before you send a whole table of temperatures.

Data imports are where lookalikes hurt most. A CSV of weather observations that used a masculine ordinal will fail a validator that expects DEGREE SIGN. A PDF copy that turned the mark into a superscript o will sort as a letter. Re-paste from this board into a hex-aware inspector if a pipeline starts rejecting rows. In HTML, ° and the literal UTF-8 character are equivalent in modern browsers; in JSON, use the literal or an escape, not an HTML entity. In a programming language, prefer the Unicode character in a UTF-8 source file over a code-page assumption from Alt 0176 on one Windows box. Keep a Latin “deg” fallback only when a 7-bit protocol forbids the glyph.