Fraction Symbols — Copy and Paste (½ ⅓ ¼ ⅔ ¾ ⅛)

Fraction symbols.

Halves, thirds, quarters, eighths and the rest — as single characters you can copy.

Tap any symbol to copy it.

Halves & quarters

Thirds, fifths & sixths

Eighths & others

Single-character fractions

These are precomposed fractions — each one is a single Unicode character, not a "1", a slash and a "2" stuck together — so they line up neatly in recipes, measurements, spreadsheets and posts without throwing off the line height. They cover the common cooking and tape-measure fractions (halves, quarters, thirds, eighths). For a fraction that doesn't exist as a single character, the fraction slash (⁄) joins a numerator and denominator into a proper-looking fraction in fonts that support it, or you can write it inline as 5/16. For built-up fractions in documents, a word processor's equation editor is the more flexible route.

How to type fraction characters

Windows: hold Alt and type on the numeric keypad — 0189 for ½, 0188 for ¼, 0190 for ¾. Those three are the only fractions with classic Alt codes.
Word and Outlook: type the hex code and press Alt + X — 2153 becomes ⅓, 215B becomes ⅛, 2044 becomes the fraction slash ⁄.
Windows, any character: Win + . opens the emoji panel; the symbols tab lists them.
macOS: Ctrl + Cmd + Space opens the Character Viewer; search "one third".
Linux: Ctrl + Shift + U, then 00bd, then Enter for ½.
HTML: most have names — ½ ½, ¼ ¼, ¾ ¾, &frac13; ⅓, &frac23; ⅔, on through &frac78; ⅞. The fraction slash is &frasl;. Numeric forms work too: ⅓ is ⅓. The HTML entities page lists them all.

Vulgar fractions and the fraction slash

Unicode calls these vulgar fractions — "vulgar" in the old sense of common, not rude. ½, ¼ and ¾ come from Latin-1 at U+00BD, U+00BC and U+00BE and are in effectively every font ever made. The rest live in the Number Forms block from U+2150 to U+215E, which is well covered but slightly less universal; ↉ (U+2189, zero thirds) is the rarest of the set and mainly turns up in baseball scoring.

The fraction slash ⁄ (U+2044) is not the ordinary slash / (U+002F). It is a formatting request: fonts that implement the OpenType frac feature will see 5⁄16 and rebuild it as a raised numerator over a lowered denominator. Where that support is missing it simply draws as a steeper slash, so nothing breaks — you just do not get the typeset look.

Search, sorting and screen readers

Because ½ is one character rather than three, a search for "1/2" will not match it, and a spreadsheet treats a pasted ½ as text, not a number, so it will not sum a column of them. If a value is data you intend to calculate with, store 0.5 and format the display; keep ½ for prose, recipes and labels.

There is a useful escape hatch: each vulgar fraction carries a compatibility decomposition, so Unicode NFKC normalisation rewrites ½ as 1⁄2. Search indexes that normalise input will therefore match both forms. Screen readers usually announce the common fractions correctly as "one half" or "three quarters", but the rarer ones such as ⅐ and ⅑ can be read as an unknown character, so spell those out in text where the number matters.

FAQ

How do I type ½ and other fractions?

Copy them above — each is a single character. Many word processors also auto-format 1/2, 1/4 and 3/4 into ½, ¼ and ¾ as you type, but copying covers the ones that don't auto-format.

Can I make any fraction this way?

Only the common ones exist as single characters. For others, use the fraction slash (⁄) between the numbers, an equation editor, or just write it as a/b like 7/16.

Why will my spreadsheet not add up a column of ½?

Because ½ is a text character, not a number. A spreadsheet stores it as text and skips it in a SUM. Enter 0.5 and apply a number format if you need the cell to calculate; use ½ only where the value is just being displayed.

What is the difference between ⁄ and a normal slash?

The fraction slash ⁄ (U+2044) tells the font to build a proper fraction from the digits either side, so 5⁄16 can render with a raised numerator and lowered denominator. A plain slash / (U+002F) is just punctuation and never does that.

Which fraction characters are safest across fonts?

½, ¼ and ¾ are the most reliable — they come from Latin-1 and are in essentially every font. The thirds, fifths, sixths and eighths from the Number Forms block are close behind. ⅐, ⅑, ⅒ and ↉ are the ones most likely to be missing.