Unicode has subscripted and superscripted versions of a number of characters including a full set of Arabic numerals. These characters allow any polynomial, chemical and certain other equations to be represented in plain text without using any form of markup like HTML or TeX.

The World Wide Web Consortium and the Unicode Consortium have made recommendations on the choice between using markup and using superscript and subscript characters: When used in mathematical context (MathML) it is recommended to consistently use style markup for superscripts and subscripts [...] However, when super and sub-scripts are to reflect semantic distinctions, it is easier to work with these meanings encoded in text rather than markup, for example, in phonetic or phonemic transcription.

Uses

The intended use when these characters were added to Unicode was to produce true superscripts and subscripts so that chemical and algebraic formulas could be written without markup. Thus (using a subscript 2 character) is supposed to be identical to (with subscript markup).

In reality, many fonts that include these characters ignore the Unicode definition, and instead design the digits for mathematical numerator and denominator glyphs, 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 or 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 Unicode 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.For a general overview and technical information on glyph substitution (though not specifically for fractions), see GSUB — Glyph Substitution Table in the OpenType specification on the Microsoft Typography site. User-end support was quite poor for a number of years, but fonts,Such as Andika, Arno Pro, Brill, Brioso Pro, Calibri, Candara, Carlito, Cantarell, FiraGO, EB Garamond, Gentium, Lato, Linux Libertine, Noto Sans, Noto Serif, Open Sans and Yrsa browsers,Such as Chrome, Firefox and Falkon word processors,Such as LibreOffice Writer desktop publishing softwareSuch as Adobe InDesign and Scribus and others increasingly support the intended Unicode behavior. This browser and its default font render the sequence as .

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.

Two code points in the "Superscripts and Subscripts" block are unassigned, and remain available for future characters.

+ Unicode characters 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F U+00Bx x² x³ x¹ U+207x x⁰ xⁱ x⁴ x⁵ x⁶ x⁷ x⁸ x⁹ x⁺ x⁻ x⁼ x⁽ x⁾ xⁿ U+208x x₀ x₁ x₂ x₃ x₄ x₅ x₆ x₇ x₈ x₉ x₊ x₋ x₌ x₍ x₎ U+209x xₐ xₑ xₒ xₓ xₔ xₕ xₖ xₗ xₘ xₙ xₚ xₛ xₜ x₝ x₞ x₟

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 Latin Extended-G block contains many superscripts: 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: . The Armenian block contains three superscripted letters: .

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: . The Latin Extended-G block contains one subscript, .

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: .

+ Basic Latin modifier letters ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Superscript capitalᴬᴮꟲᴰᴱꟳᴳᴴᴵᴶᴷᴸᴹᴺᴼᴾꟴᴿ꟱ᵀᵁⱽᵂ Superscript small capital 𝿩 𐞄 𝿨 𝿪 𐞒 𐞖 ᶦ ᶫ ᶰ 𝿑 𐞪 ᶸ 𐞲 Superscript minusculeᵃᵇᶜᵈᵉᶠᵍʰⁱʲᵏˡᵐⁿᵒᵖ𐞥ʳˢᵗᵘᵛʷˣʸᶻ Overscript small capital ◌ᷛ ◌ᷞ◌ᷟ◌ᷡ ◌ᷢ Overscript minuscule◌ͣ ◌ᷨ◌ͨ ◌ͩ ◌ͤ ◌ᷫ◌ᷚ◌ͪ ◌ͥ ◌ᷜ◌ᷝ◌ͫ ◌ᷠ◌ͦ ◌ᷮ ◌ͬ ◌ᷤ◌ͭ ◌ͧ ◌ͮ ◌ᷱ◌ͯ ◌ᷦ Subscript minusculeₐ ₑ ₕᵢⱼₖₗₘₙₒₚ ᵣₛₜᵤᵥ₝ₓ₞₟ Underscript minuscule ◌᷊ ◌ᪿ

§ Cyrillic 𞀹 𞀻 𞁀, ◌ⷡ ◌ⷩ ◌ⷦ ◌ⷮ ◌ꙷ and 𞁞 might be substituted for these letters.

*Superscript capital Y is in the pipeline for a future version of the Unicode Standard.

+ Additional Latin modifier letters Æ Ä Ƀ Ǝ Ə Ħ ꬸ Ŋ Ƞ Ö Ü Superscript capital ᴭ (ᴬ̈) ᴯ ᴲ ꟸ ᴻ (ᴼ̈) (ᵁ̈) Superscript minuscule 𐞃 (ᵃ̈)𝿒 ᵊ 𐞕 ᵑ 𝿜 (ᵒ̈) (ᵘ̈) Overscript minuscule ◌ᷔ ◌ᷲ ◌ᷪ ◌ᷬ ◌ᷳ ◌ᷴ Subscript minuscule ₔ

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.

+ Greek modifier letters (intended for use in Latin-script text) ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ Superscript minuscule ᵝᵞᵟᵋ ᶿᶥ ᵠᵡ𝿳𝿴 Overscript minuscule ◌ᷩ ◌᫇ Subscript minuscule ᵦᵧ ͺ is set lower than a normal subscript. It is equivalent to underscript on a space. ᵨ ᵩᵪ Underscript minuscule ◌ͅ ◌̫ and are traditionally typeset as an omega.

Cyrillic modifier characters are intended for use in Cyrillic text.

+ Russian modifier letters А Б В Г Д Е Ж З И К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я Superscript 𞀰 𞀱 𞀲 𞀳 𞀴 𞀵 𞀶 𞀷 𞀸 𞀹 𞀺 𞀻 ᵸ 𞀼 𞀽 𞀾 𞀿 𞁀 𞁁 𞁂 𞁃 𞁄 𞁅 𞁆 ꚜ 𞁇 ꚝ 𞁈 𞁉 Overscript ◌ⷶ ◌ⷠ◌ⷡ ◌ⷢ ◌ⷣ ◌ⷷ ◌ⷤ ◌ⷥ ◌ꙵ ◌ⷦ ◌ⷧ ◌ⷨ ◌ⷩ ◌ⷪ ◌ⷫ ◌ⷬ ◌ⷭ ◌ⷮ ◌ꙷ ◌ꚞ ◌ⷯ ◌ⷰ ◌ⷱ ◌ⷲ ◌ⷳ ◌ꙸ ◌ꙹ ◌ꙺ ◌ⷻ Subscript 𞁑 𞁒 𞁓 𞁔 𞁕 𞁖 𞁗 𞁘 𞁙 𞁚 𞁛 𞁜 𞁝 𞁞 𞁟 𞁠 𞁡 𞁢 𞁣 𞁤 𞁥 𞁦

+ Additional modern Cyrillic modifier letters Ә Ґ Є Ѕ Ꚉ І Ї Ј Ө Ҫ Ү Ұ Џ Ӏ Superscript 𞁋 𞁊 𞁌 (𞁌̈) 𞁍 𞁎 𞁫 𞁏 𞁭 𞁐 Overscript ◌ꙴ ◌𞂏 ◌ꙶ Subscript 𞁧 𞁩 𞁨 (𞁨̈) 𞁪

+ Additional medieval Cyrillic modifier letters Ꙋ Ѡ Ѣ Ꙗ Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѭ ѲꙐSuperscript𞁬 Overscript ◌ⷹ ◌ꙻ ◌ⷺ ◌ⷼ ◌ꚟ ◌ⷽ ◌ⷾ ◌ⷿ ◌ⷴ

Superscript and subscript ё, ї, й, ў, ќ etc. are handled with diacritics, etc. Many of the Cyrillic characters were added to the Cyrillic Extended-D block, which was added to the free Gentium and Andika fonts with version 6.2 in February 2023.

See also Unicode Small caps, Fullwidths, and Mathematical alphanumerics.

Superscript IPA The Latin Extended-F block was created for the remaining superscript IPA letters. They are supported by the free Gentium and Andika fonts. Additional superscript characters for historical and para-IPA letters were be released with version 18 of the Unicode Standard in 2026.

Consonant letters The Unicode characters for superscript (modifier) IPA and extIPA consonant letters are as follows. The entire Latin Extended-F block is dedicated to superscript IPA. Characters for sounds with secondary articulation are set off in parentheses and placed below the letter for the primary articulation. Many were published with Unicode 18 in September 2026, and so will display as tofu without an updated font.