# Why is there no cent symbol? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145 "2003-03-09T21:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/1 "2003-03-09T21:18:42Z")
I’ve searched the board and archive but can’t believe this hasn’t been covered before. Why does the cent sign not appear in most font sets? Why isn’t it on a standard keyboard? It looks rather silly to say “That’s just my $.02.” ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/2 "2003-03-09T21:21:11Z")
My WAG is that it isn’t included because it’s so rarely used. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/3 "2003-03-09T21:21:40Z")
It’s irrelevant now. Back in the good 'ol days, there were probably more products available to consumers that were priced under one dollar than above it. There was a greater need for the cent sign. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Matthew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Mr.Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Matthew)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/4 "2003-03-09T21:22:39Z")
ALT-0162 ¢ As for why it’s not around, I’d hazard the WAG that it’s a matter of utility. People simply don’t have much need for it. Why Scroll Lock remains is a mystery to me. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/5 "2003-03-09T21:22:57Z")
Actually, it does appear in most font sets (as Alt+0162). It has always surprised me that it never made it onto the standard keyboard, especially when characters like tilde (~) and caret (^) _do_ appear on the keyboard! ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/6 "2003-03-09T21:23:15Z")
In Windows, hold down ALT and press (on the numeric keypad) 0162 (you must include the leading zero): ¢ Voila! ---
**Author:** ![5\_time\_champ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/278dde/32.png) [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/7 "2003-03-09T21:40:01Z")
and on the Mac platform the simple ALT 4 will render at ¢ ---
**Author:** ![viking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@viking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/viking)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/8 "2003-03-09T21:42:27Z")
Early Out: the tilde and caret are much used in programming and unix, which were prevalent uses for computers when keyboards were being invented. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/9 "2003-03-09T21:47:54Z")
The problem is that not all fonts use the ANSI standard upper-ascii set for bytes 128-255. You can embed character 0169 in your message, but not everyone will see a cents (¢) sign. I do recall seeing the cents sign as one of the uppercase characters on some typewriter keyboards, but apparently it didn’t make the jump to terminal and PC keyboards. I guess it’s because accounting these days has decimalized prices, eliminating the old dollars and cents scheme. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/10 "2003-03-09T22:24:35Z")
Background on the development of ASCII: [http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/index.html](http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/index.html) Short answer - yes, the 1967 ASCII character set was heavily influenced by programming language notions of the time (notably COBOL). Also, they wished to include “diacritical marks” like the tilde. However, UNIX came later, and assigned the uses it wanted from the available characters - the 1967 ASCII set is, by and large, the set represented on the modern keyboard. > [@](#): > > Additionally, in the late 50’s/early 60’s there was an explosion of “automatic” computer programming (eg. what were to become compilers and interpreters), and the designers of these wanted to use the rich, traditional set of mathematical symbols, as well as “my idea is bigger than your idea”, so there were many competing camps and clashing ideas on what characters should go into extremely cramped code sets (and small keyboards). ALGOL favored a large set, COBOL used common typewriter characters. Since the U.S. military vastly preferred COBOL (one of it’s major proponents was Grace Hopper, later Admiral Hopper), it won, since the military, the Army in particular, was heavily at the forefront of computer $tandardization. Programming languages, however, did not tend to make use of “cents”, even if it DID appear on typewriter keyboards, so it got bumped in favor of other characters. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/11 "2003-03-09T23:08:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lumpy \* > You can embed character 0169 in your message, but not everyone will see a cents (¢) sign. They should if they’re using a web browser. The cent sign is one of the HTML defined symbols, so it should show up. If you’re human, you probably have an easier time remembering words than numbers, so you can also consider doing this, which will work in HTML, but will probably not work in things like Word documents: ¢ ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/12 "2003-03-09T23:12:00Z")
you can use the character map under accessories if you’re using windows… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/13 "2003-03-09T23:41:46Z")
To expand on **yabob** ’s point: the original uses of computers were _purely_ business or scientific in nature. The cent sign is fine for posting above a bin full of apples, but on a spread sheet, the cost is going to be reckoned in hundredths of dollars. There really was no actual reason to include the cent sign in the earliest applications. Added to that was the construction of the high-speed printer which had a deliberately limited character set. By including fewer characters, the print chain did not have to cycle as far in order to get to the correct character to strike. (Remember, computers were around for over 30 years before laser and ink-jet printing was developed.) The (high speed) print chains actually lacked some characters that _were_ available on the keyboard, so adding more keyboard characters was really contra-indicated. On the IBM (EBCDIC) keyboards, the cent from the older typewriters (shift + 6) was replaced by the “logical not,” (a hyphen with a small downstroke on the right side that I _may_ be able to replicate (but which may not show up on all browsers) “¬”). The non-IBM character sets did not use that sign, so languages developed in other environments began to use the exclamation point or backslash to indicate “not” and the character over the digit 6 was then given to the carat which was used in a number of non-IBM applications. And the cent continued to be left off the base character set. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/14 "2003-03-09T23:48:22Z")
Minor nitpick: On a Mac, it’s Option-4. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/15 "2003-03-10T00:41:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Achernar \* > > > [@](#): > > > > You can embed character 0169 in your message, but not everyone will see a cents (¢) sign. > > They should if they’re using a web browser. The cent sign is one of the HTML defined symbols, so it should show up. Not true. The **correct** way to include a cent sign in your HTML is to use “¢”, as you also pointed out, **not** a single character with ASCII value 162 (nit: 169 is the copyright symbol). The whole point of the html entities is that putting an extended ASCII character in the document, rather than an abstracted representation of it, **won’t** work on all web browsers. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/16 "2003-03-10T01:33:04Z")
You are correct, and I apologize for my sloppiness; I only meant that it will work on this board. I believe from experience that on this board, an Extended ASCII 162 will show up as a Unicode 162. But in general in HTML documents, you should use the escape sequence. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/17 "2003-03-10T02:31:52Z")
Once again, the Teeming Millions[sup]TM[/sup] come to the rescue. I do a lot of desktop publishing ads for my husband’s business and can tell you that the cents sign would have come in handy on more than one occasion. ¢ Cool! ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/18 "2003-03-10T02:42:47Z")
Once again, look [here](http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html) I don’t know if this list is complete, but it’s very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/19 "2003-03-10T03:35:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 5 time champ \* > \*\*and on the Mac platform the simple **ALT** 4 will render at ¢ \*\* _Traitor! Seize him!_ And on a Mac 9.x and below, you can find all those weird symbols by opening  (Apple) Menu\> Key Caps, and press the keys you want to see (shift, option, control…). I dunno about OSX, though. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145/20 "2003-03-10T04:30:10Z")
¢ You can use ¢ in HTML [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-cent-symbol/160145.md?page=2)