Why does Ø still show as Ã˜ with meta charset utf-8?

Because the HTTP header wins over the meta tag. If the server sends Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1, the browser follows that and ignores your , so Ø keeps coming out as Ã˜. Open the network tab in your browser's dev tools, look at the Content-Type on the page response, and change the server or framework config until it says charset=utf-8.

Why does my slug function turn Søren into Sren?

Ø has no Unicode decomposition, so the usual trick of normalizing to NFKD and dropping everything non-ASCII deletes it instead of leaving an O. Ødegaard becomes degaard the same way. Map it yourself before normalizing: the Danish and Norwegian fallback is Ø to Oe and ø to oe, which turns Søren into soeren. Æ has the same problem and falls back to Ae.

Is Ø the same as a slashed zero?

No. A slashed zero is the digit 0 drawn with a stroke in some fonts, so underneath it's still U+0030. Ø is a letter. It sneaks into serial numbers, product keys and radio callsigns when someone retypes a zero they saw printed with a slash, and then numeric parsing or a lookup fails. In fields that should only hold digits or codes, map Ø to 0 before validating.

Why does my DOS table's header line show ÆÍÍÍØÍÍÍµ?

It's code page 437 being read as Windows-1252, and a double header rule happens to land on Scandinavian-looking letters: ╞ (198) turns into Æ, ═ (205) into Í, each ╪ crossing into Ø and ╡ (181) into µ. Browsers can't decode code page 437 at all, so if the table is headed for a web page, convert the file to UTF-8 before you serve it.

ASCII 216

Uppercase O with strokeBox cross junction, double horizontal

ASCII 216 is Ø on Windows and ╪ in old DOS.

Ø (Capital O with Stroke) is byte 216 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00D8. Danish, Norwegian and Faroese use it as a letter, as in Øresund and Østfold. Outside Scandinavia it gets borrowed for symbols it only resembles. Engineers write Ø 12 for a 12 mm diameter, where the proper sign is ⌀ (U+2300), and maths uses ∅ (U+2205) for the empty set. On paper the difference barely shows, but search treats all three as unrelated characters, so a parts catalog searched for ⌀ won't find entries typed with Ø. UTF-8 stores Ø as C3 98, which misreads as Ã˜. The HTML entity is Ø.

╪ (Single Vertical, Double Horizontal) is byte 216 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+256A. It's the crossing where a single column line │ (179) passes through a double row line ═ (205), a common way to set a header apart from the rows below it. Python's tabulate draws its fancy_grid header separator exactly like that: ╞═════╪═════╡. Code page 850 put Ï on this byte and replaced both ends too, so the same separator read as 850 comes out as ã═════Ï═════Á. In UTF-8 it's E2 95 AA, and the HTML entity is &boxvH;.

Latin LetterBox Drawing

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 216 is Ø.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u00D8\n");   /* UTF-8: C3 98 */

    unsigned char b = 216;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 216 0xD8 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 216 is ╪ only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0xD8 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(216);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xD8 is -40.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)216;
    unsigned char u = 216;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -40 216 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u256A\n");          /* E2 95 AA */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0216 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00D8 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+Shift+O.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type d8, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, slash, O.
Phone: Tap Shift, then long-press O and pick Ø.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 216 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. US PCs insert ╪, but PCs set to code page 850, common in Western Europe, insert Ï. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 256A and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "box drawings vertical single and horizontal double".
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 256a, then Space.
Phone: Phone keyboards have no key for it. Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Because the HTTP header wins over the meta tag. If the server sends Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1, the browser follows that and ignores your <meta charset=utf-8>, so Ø keeps coming out as Ã˜. Open the network tab in your browser's dev tools, look at the Content-Type on the page response, and change the server or framework config until it says charset=utf-8.
Ø has no Unicode decomposition, so the usual trick of normalizing to NFKD and dropping everything non-ASCII deletes it instead of leaving an O. Ødegaard becomes degaard the same way. Map it yourself before normalizing: the Danish and Norwegian fallback is Ø to Oe and ø to oe, which turns Søren into soeren. Æ has the same problem and falls back to Ae.
No. A slashed zero is the digit 0 drawn with a stroke in some fonts, so underneath it's still U+0030. Ø is a letter. It sneaks into serial numbers, product keys and radio callsigns when someone retypes a zero they saw printed with a slash, and then numeric parsing or a lookup fails. In fields that should only hold digits or codes, map Ø to 0 before validating.
It's code page 437 being read as Windows-1252, and a double header rule happens to land on Scandinavian-looking letters: ╞ (198) turns into Æ, ═ (205) into Í, each ╪ crossing into Ø and ╡ (181) into µ. Browsers can't decode code page 437 at all, so if the table is headed for a web page, convert the file to UTF-8 before you serve it.

Frequently Asked Questions

It's code page 437 being read as Windows-1252, and a double header rule happens to land on Scandinavian-looking letters: ╞ (198) turns into Æ, ═ (205) into Í, each ╪ crossing into Ø and ╡ (181) into µ. Browsers can't decode code page 437 at all, so if the table is headed for a web page, convert the file to UTF-8 before you serve it.

ASCII 216

Uppercase O with strokeBox cross junction, double horizontal

ASCII 216 is Ø on Windows and ╪ in old DOS.

Latin Letter

Box Drawing

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 216 is Ø.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u00D8\n"); /* UTF-8: C3 98 */

unsigned char b = 216; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 216 0xD8 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 216 is ╪ only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0xD8 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(216);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xD8 is -40.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)216;

unsigned char u = 216;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -40 216 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u256A\n"); /* E2 95 AA */

return 0;

}