![Pound sign fonts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Pound_sign_fonts.svg)
The pound sign is the
symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
for the pound
unit
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (alb ...
of
sterling – the
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general def ...
of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and previously of
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
and of the
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On 1 ...
. The same symbol is used for other currencies called
pound, such as the
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
,
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
,
Manx and
Syrian pounds. The sign may be drawn with one or two bars depending on personal preference, but the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
has used the one-bar style exclusively on banknotes since 1975.
In Canada and the United States, "pound sign" refers to the symbol (
number sign
The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a Typographic ligature, ...
).
Origin
The symbol derives from the upper case
Latin letter
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Ital ...
, representing ''libra pondo'', the basic unit of weight in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
, which in turn is derived from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word, ''libra'', meaning
scales
Scale or scales may refer to:
Mathematics
* Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points
* Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original
* Scale factor, a number w ...
or a balance. The pound became an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
unit of weight and in England became defined as the
tower pound
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally define ...
(equivalent to 350 grams) of
sterling silver
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925.
''Fine silver'', which is 99.9% pure silver, is r ...
.
According to the
Royal Mint Museum
The Royal Mint Museum is a numismatics museum located in Llantrisant, Wales, which houses coins, medals, artwork and minting equipment previous owned by the Royal Mint. Although the museum is located on the same site as the Royal Mint, the mint ...
:
However, the simple letter L, in lower- or uppercase, was used to represent the pound in printed books and newspapers until well into the 19th century. In the
blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
type used until the seventeenth century, the letter L is rendered as
.
Usage
In the case of Sterling, the pound sign is placed before the numerals (e.g., £12,000) and separated from the following digits by no space or only a
thin space
In typography, a thin space is a space character whose width is usually or of an em. It is used to add a narrow space, such as between nested quotation marks or to separate glyphs that interfere with one another. It is not as narrow as the hai ...
. In the UK, the sign is used without any prefix though elsewhere the style GB£ may be seen; in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
and
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
, a disambiguating letter is added (
E£ or £E and
£L respectively). In international banking and
foreign exchange
The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...
operations, the symbol is rarely used: the
ISO 4217
ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individual cu ...
currency code (GBP, EGP, LBP etc) is preferred. Traditionally, abbreviations such as '£stg.' or '£ stg.' (e.g. "£stg.12,000" or "£12,000 stg.") have also been used for this purpose.
Other English variants
Canadian English
In
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
the symbols and are both called the pound sign. (The # symbol is also known as "hash sign", "number sign", and "
noughts and crosses
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...
board".)
US English
In American English, the term "pound sign" usually refers to the symbol (number sign), and the corresponding telephone key is called the "pound key".
(As in Canada, the # symbol has many
other uses.)
Historic variants
Double bar style
Banknotes issued by the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
since 1975 have only used the single bar style as a pound sign.
[ ("£1 1st Series Treasury Issue" to "£5 Series B")] The Bank used both the two-bar style () and the one-bar style () (and sometimes a figure without any symbol whatever) more or less equally since 1725 until 1971, intermittently and sometimes concurrently.
In
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
, the symbols are
allograph
Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down.
Authorship
An allograph may be the opposite of an autograph – i.e. a person's words or name ( signature) written b ...
s style choices when used to represent the pound; consequently fonts use (
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
)
code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
irrespective of which style chosen, (not despite its similarity). It is a
font design
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
choice on how to draw the symbol at U+00A3:
although most
computer font
A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for print ...
s do so with one bar, the two-bar style is not rare (as may be seen in the illustration above).
Other
Note the leading J of Jacquard
In the eighteenth-century
Caslon
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Caslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal ty ...
metal fonts, the pound sign was identical to an italic uppercase
J, rotated 180 degrees.
Currencies that use the pound sign
* Egypt:
Egyptian pound
The pound ( arz, جنيه مصرى '; abbreviation: LE in Latin, in Arabic, historically also £E; ISO code: EGP) is the official currency of Egypt. It is divided into 100 piastres, or ersh ( ; ''plural'' ; abbreviation: PT), or 1,000 mill ...
* Falkland Islands:
Falkland Islands pound
The pound is the currency of the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. The symbol is the pound sign, £. The ISO 4217 currency code is ''FKP''.
The Falkland Islands pound has always been Fixed exchange rate, ...
*Gibraltar:
Gibraltar pound
The pound ( sign: £; ISO code: GIP) is the currency of Gibraltar. It is pegged to – and exchangeable with – sterling at par value. Coins and banknotes of the Gibraltar pound are issued by the Government of Gibraltar.
History
Until 1872, ...
* Guernsey:
Guernsey pound
* Isle of Man:
Manx pound
* Jersey:
Jersey pound
The pound (french: Livre de Jersey, Jèrriais: Louis de Jersey; abbreviation: JEP; sign: £) is the currency of Jersey. Jersey is in currency union with the United Kingdom, and the Jersey pound is not a separate currency but is an issue of bank ...
* St Helena:
Saint Helena pound
The pound is the currency of the Atlantic islands of Saint Helena and Ascension, which are constituent parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It is fixed at parity with sterling, and so both cur ...
* South Sudan:
South Sudanese pound
The South Sudanese pound ( ISO code and abbreviation: SSP) is the currency of the Republic of South Sudan. It is subdivided into 100 piasters. It was approved by the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly before secession on 9 July 2011 from Sudan ...
* Sudan:
Sudanese pound
The Sudanese pound (Arabic: ; abbreviation: LS in Latin, in Arabic, historically also £Sd; ISO code: SDG) is the currency of the Republic of the Sudan. The pound is divided into 100 piastres (or ''qirsh'' () in Arabic). It is issued by th ...
* Syria:
Syrian pound
* United Kingdom:
Pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
Former currencies
* Australia:
Australian pound
The pound ( Sign: £, £A for distinction) was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. As with other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (denoted by the symbol ...
* The Bahamas:
Bahamian pound
The pound was the currency of the Bahamas until 1966. It was equivalent to the pound sterling and was divided into 20 '' shillings'', each of 12 ''pence''. Standard sterling coinage circulated. Apart from a Bahamas penny coin struck in 1806, there ...
* Bermuda:
Bermudian pound
The pound was the currency of Bermuda until 1970. It was equivalent to sterling, alongside which it circulated, and was similarly divided into 20 shillings each of 12 pence. Bermuda decimalised in 1970, replacing the pound with the Bermudian d ...
* Canada:
Canadian pound
The pound (symbol £) was the currency of the Canadas until 1858. It was subdivided into 20 ''shillings'' (s), each of 12 ''pence'' (d). In Lower Canada, the '' sou'' was used, worth penny. Although the £sd accounting system had its origins in ...
* Cyprus:
Cypriot pound
The pound, or lira ( el, λίρα, plural , and tr, lira, ota, لیره, from the Latin via the Italian ; sign: £, sometimes £C for distinction), was the currency of Cyprus, including the Sovereign Base Areas in Akrotiri and Dhekelia, from 1 ...
* Fiji:
Fijian pound
The pound (sign: £) was the currency of Fiji between 1873 and 1969. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.
History
From its earliest days as a British colony, sterling coinage circulated in Fiji, supplemented by locally produced ...
* The Gambia:
Gambian pound
The pound (symbol: £) was the currency of the Gambia between 1965 and 1971. Gambia used the British West African pound until it issued its own currency on October 5, 1964. In 1971, the dalasi replaced the pound at a rate of £1 = D5 (or D1 = 4 / ...
* Ghana:
Ghanaian pound
The pound was the currency of Ghana between 1958 and 1965. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence. Until 1958, Ghana used the British West African pound, after which it issued its own currency. In 1965, Ghana introduced the first ' ...
* Ireland:
Irish pound
* Malta;
Maltese pound
* New Zealand:
New Zealand pound
The pound (symbol £, £NZ. for distinction) was the currency of New Zealand from 1840 until 1967, when it was replaced by the New Zealand dollar. Like the pound sterling, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (abbreviation s or /) each of 12 pen ...
* Rhodesia:
Rhodesian pound
The pound was the currency of Southern Rhodesia from 1964 to 1965 and Rhodesia from 1965 until 1970. It was subdivided into 20 '' shillings'', each of 12 '' pence''.
History
The Rhodesian pound was introduced following the break-up of the Fede ...
* South Africa:
South African pound
* Tonga:
Tongan pound The pound was the currency of Tonga until 1967. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.
History
Initially, sterling coins and notes circulated. This was supplemented, from 1921, by banknotes issued by the Tongan government. The not ...
* Western Samoa:
Western Samoan pound The pound was the currency of Western Samoa between 1914 and 1967. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.
History
In 1914, following the New Zealand occupation of German Samoa, the pound sterling replaced the German mark as the ...
Code points
In the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard, the symbol £ is called , and the symbol ₤ is the . These have respective code points:
*
*
Unicode notes that the "lira sign" is not widely used and was added due to both it and the pound sign being available on
HP printers.
The encoding of the £ symbol in position xA3 (156
10) was first standardised by
ISO Latin-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in ...
(an "
extended ASCII") in 1985. Position xA3 was used by the
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
VT220 terminal,
Mac OS Roman
Mac OS Roman is a character encoding created by Apple Computer, Inc. for use by Macintosh computers. It is suitable for representing text in English and several other Western languages. Mac OS Roman encodes 256 characters, the first 128 of which ...
, the
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sin ...
, the
Commodore Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
and the
Acorn Archimedes
Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The first mode ...
.
Many early computers (limited to a 7-bit, 128-position
character set
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values tha ...
) used a variant of
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
with one of the less-frequently used characters replaced by the £. The UK national variant of
ISO 646
ISO/IEC 646 is a set of ISO/IEC standards, described as ''Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange'' and developed in cooperation with ASCII at least since 1964. Since its first edition in ...
was standardised as BS 4730 in 1985. This code was identical to ASCII except for two characters: x23 encoded instead of , while x7E encoded (
overline
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in m ...
) instead of (
tilde
The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
).
MSDOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
on the
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
originally used a non-standard 8-bit character set
Code page 437 in which the £ symbol was encoded as x9C; adoption of the
ISO/IEC 8859-1 ("ISO Latin-1") standard code xA3 only came later with
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
. The
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
also used position x9C. The
HP LaserJet
LaserJet as a brand name identifies the line of laser printers marketed by the American computer company Hewlett-Packard (HP). The HP LaserJet was the first popular desktop laser printer. Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP ...
used position xBA for the £ symbol, while most other printers used x9C. The BBC
Ceefax
Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
system which dated from 1976 encoded the £ as x23. The
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as t ...
and the
BBC Micro
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...
used x60 (
grave
A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grave ...
). The
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
used x5C while the
Oric
Oric was the name used by UK-based Tangerine Computer Systems for a series of 6502-based home computers sold in the 1980s, primarily in Europe.
With the success of the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research, Tangerine's backers suggested a ho ...
used x5F .
IBM's
EBCDIC
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC; ) is an eight- bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding ...
code page 037 uses xB1 for the £ while its code page 285 uses x5B.
ICL's
1900-series mainframes used a six-bit (64-position character set) encoding for characters, loosely based on BS 4730, with the £ symbol represented as
octal
The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...
23 (hex 13, dec 19).
Entry methods
Typewriters
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s produced for the British market included a "£" sign from the earliest days, though its position varied widely. A 1921 advertisement for an
Imperial Typewriters model D, for example shows a machine with two modifier shifts (CAPS and FIG), with the "£" sign occupying the FIG shift position on the key for letter "B". But the advertisement notes that "We make special keyboards containing symbols, fractions, signs, etc., for the peculiar needs of Engineers, Builders, Architects, Chemists, Scientists, etc., or any staple trade."
On Latin-alphabet typewriters lacking a "£" symbol type element, a reasonable approximation could be made by
overtyping an "f" over an "L". Historically, "L" overtyped with a hyphen or an equals sign was also used. In the case of Sterling, the abbreviation "Stg." may be seen used in specialist contexts instead of the £ sign (as in ).
Compose key
The
compose key
A compose key (sometimes called multi key) is a key on a computer keyboard that indicates that the following (usually 2 or more) keystrokes trigger the insertion of an alternate character, typically a precomposed character or a symbol.
For insta ...
sequence is:
*
Windows, Linux, Unix
On
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
and
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
, the
UK keyboard layout
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden type ...
has the "£" symbol on the 3 number key and is typed using:
*
On a
US-International
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden t ...
keyboard in Windows, the "£" can be entered using:
*
* (on keyboards without an engraved AltGr key)
On a US-International keyboard in Linux and Unix, the "£" can be entered using:
* followed by
*
In Windows, it may also be generated through the
Alt keycodes, although the results vary depending on factors such as the locale, codepage and OS version:
* + (keeping Alt pressed until all 4 digits have been typed on the
numeric keypad
A numeric keypad, number pad, numpad, or ten key,
is the palm-sized, usually-17-key section of a standard computer keyboard, usually on the far right. It provides calculator-style efficiency for entering numbers. The idea of a 10-key nu ...
only)
* + (this also works in
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
)
Windows also supports the combination but this combination may be overridden by applications for other purposes.
The
Character Map
Character Map is a utility included with Microsoft Windows operating systems and is used to view the characters in any installed font, to check what keyboard input ( Alt code) is used to enter those characters, and to copy characters to the cli ...
utility and
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includin ...
's ''Insert Symbol'' commands may also be used to enter this character.
Mac OS
The symbol "£" is in the
MacRoman
Mac OS Roman is a character encoding created by Apple Computer, Inc. for use by Macintosh computers. It is suitable for representing text in English and several other Western languages. Mac OS Roman encodes 256 characters, the first 128 of which ...
character set and can be generated on most non-UK
Mac OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
keyboard layouts which do not have a dedicated key for it, typically through:
*
On UK Apple Mac keyboards, this is reversed, with the "£" symbol on the number 3 key, typed using:
* (and the
number sign
The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a Typographic ligature, ...
"#" generated by )
Android
Pressing and holding the local currency sign will invoke a pop-up box presenting an array of currency signs, from which the pound sign may be chosen.
Other uses
The logo of the
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
, a British
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
, is based on the pound sign, symbolising the party's opposition to adoption of the
euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
and to the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
generally.
A symbol that appears to be a double-barred pound sign is used as the logo of the record label
Parlophone
Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...
. In fact this is a stylised version of a
blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
L (
), standing for Lindström (the firm's founder
Carl Lindström).
The pound sign was used as an uppercase letter (the lowercase being
ſ) signifying in the early 1993–1995 version of the
Turkmen Latin alphabet.
See also
*
Latin letter L with stroke
*
Semuncia
*
:Currency symbols
Notes
References
{{Currency symbols
Currency symbols