Arrow symbols.
Left, right, up, down, double, curved and triangle arrows — tap any one to copy it.
Basic arrows
Diagonal arrows
Double arrows
Other arrows & pointers
Where arrows come in handy
Arrow characters are surprisingly useful: they show steps or flow in notes and documentation (login → dashboard → settings), point things out in messages, tidy up presentation bullets, and stand in for "leads to" or "becomes" in shorthand. Because they're real text characters rather than images, they copy and paste anywhere, scale with your font, and stay crisp at any size. The plain directional arrows (← → ↑ ↓) have the widest support across fonts and devices; the more decorative ones are best checked on your target platform first.
Single, double and the convention behind them
The distinction between → (U+2192) and ⇒ (U+21D2) is largely conventional in prose but genuinely meaningful in mathematics and logic. There, a single arrow typically denotes a mapping or a function — f: A → B — while a double arrow denotes implication: x > 5 ⇒ x > 0. A double-headed arrow ⇔ (U+21D4) means "if and only if".
Outside of mathematics nobody will misread you either way, but consistency within a document reads better than mixing them at random. The four cardinal arrows are ← U+2190, → U+2192, ↑ U+2191 and ↓ U+2193, with ↔ U+2194 for a bidirectional relationship.
Typing arrows without leaving the keyboard
Most editors and chat apps autocorrect -> into → and => into ⇒, which is by far the fastest route where it is available. Otherwise:
- HTML entities:
←←,→→,↑↑,↓↓,↔↔,⇒⇒. - Linux:
Ctrl + Shift + U, then2192and Enter, gives →. - macOS: open Character Viewer with
Control + Command + Spaceand search "arrow". - Word and Google Docs: an autocorrect rule handles
-->, and Word also accepts typing2192thenAlt + X.
There is no reliable Windows Alt code for the arrows, because they sit outside the CP1252 range those codes address — which is exactly why copying is usually quickest.
Using arrows without breaking accessibility
An arrow is a character, not an image, so a screen reader will read it aloud — typically as "rightwards arrow". In a breadcrumb trail or a step sequence that produces "Home rightwards arrow Shortcuts rightwards arrow Symbols", which is noise rather than information.
Where an arrow is purely decorative, wrap it in <span aria-hidden="true"> so assistive technology skips it while sighted readers still see it. Where it genuinely carries meaning — "login → dashboard" describing a flow — consider writing the relationship in words instead, or making sure the surrounding text already conveys it. The HTML entities reference lists the named forms.