Euro (€) and Pound (£) Signs: How to Type Them on Any Device

The euro sign € is the currency symbol of the euro, used by 20 countries of the European Union, and the pound sign £ is the symbol of the British pound sterling. On a US keyboard neither has its own key: type € with Alt + 0128 on Windows or Option + Shift + 2 on a Mac, and £ with Alt + 0163 or Option + 3. UK keyboards put £ on Shift + 3. In HTML they are € and £, and in LaTeX \texteuro (or \euro from the eurosym package) and \pounds or \textsterling.

This guide gives both signs and the other major currency symbols with their Unicode code points, explains where the two signs came from and where to place them relative to the number, and covers typing them on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Word, Google Docs, Excel, and HTML before turning to LaTeX, including currency units in siunitx.

Copy and Paste the Euro Sign, Pound Sign, and Other Currency Symbols

• € — euro sign (U+20AC)
• £ — pound sign (U+00A3)
• ₤ — lira sign, a double-bar variant sometimes used for the pound (U+20A4)
• $ — dollar sign (U+0024)
• ¢ — cent sign (U+00A2)
• ¥ — yen or yuan sign (U+00A5)
• ₹ — Indian rupee sign (U+20B9)
• ₩ — won sign (U+20A9)
• ₽ — ruble sign (U+20BD)
• ₺ — Turkish lira sign (U+20BA)
• ₪ — new sheqel sign (U+20AA)
• ₦ — naira sign (U+20A6)
• ¤ — generic currency sign (U+00A4)

Only one euro sign exists in Unicode, whatever shape a font gives it. The pound sign likewise has one code point; the two-bar form is a font variant, although Unicode keeps ₤ as a separate lira sign.

Where the Two Signs Came From

The pound sign is a capital L for libra, the Roman pound weight, written in a looped script hand with one or two horizontal strokes to show that it is an abbreviation. "Pound" and "£" both descend from the Latin libra pondo, "a pound by weight," because the original pound was a pound of silver. The sign appears in handwritten English accounts in the 17th century and had replaced the plain letter L in print by the 19th. Egypt, Lebanon, and a few other pounds use the same sign.

The euro sign is much younger. The European Commission unveiled it on 12 December 1996, three years before the euro was introduced for accounting on 1 January 1999 and six before notes and coins arrived on 1 January 2002. The design is based on the Greek letter epsilon, a nod to Europe's name and to the "E" of euro, with two parallel lines meant to suggest stability. Unicode added it as U+20AC in version 2.1 in 1998, and Windows-1252 put it in the previously empty slot 0x80, which is why its Alt code is 0128 and why early web pages sometimes showed it as a box.

Before or After the Number: Placement by Locale

Both signs are written before the amount in English: €20, £10, €1,250.00. Most continental European languages place the euro sign after the number with a space, so the same price is 20 € in French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and some locales use a comma for the decimals: 1.250,00 €. The European Union's own style guide uses the sign before the number in English texts (€20) but the ISO code after the number in legal and financial documents (20 EUR).

The ISO 4217 codes are EUR for the euro and GBP for the pound (the London Stock Exchange quotes share prices in pence as GBX or GBp). Codes are safer in tables and data files because "£" and "$" each serve several currencies; in prose, the sign is friendlier. Where your language puts a space between number and sign, make it a non-breaking one so a line never ends with a lone €.

How to Type the Euro and Pound Signs

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0128 on the numeric keypad for €, or 0163 for £, then release Alt. The leading zero matters: Alt + 128 without it gives Ç. On a UK layout, £ is Shift + 3 and € is AltGr + 4 (Ctrl + Alt + 4 also works). Microsoft Word adds Ctrl + Alt + E for € on US layouts and accepts the Alt + X trick for anything: type 20AC or 00A3, then press Alt + X.

Mac: On the US layout, Option + Shift + 2 gives € and Option + 3 gives £. On the British layout the keys are swapped around: £ is Shift + 3, € is Option + 2, and # is Option + 3. Every other sign is in the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) under Currency Symbols, or you can type "euro" or "pound" in its search field.

iPhone and Android: Open the number keyboard and long-press the $ key (or £ or € if your region shows one of those instead). The pop-up includes €, £, ¥, ₩, ₹, and ₽ among others, and you slide to the one you want. Android's Gboard behaves the same way.

Word and Google Docs: The OS shortcuts work in both. Google Docs also has Insert → Special characters with a Currency category, and some Word locales AutoCorrect (e) to €.

Excel and Google Sheets: Do not type the sign into the cell with the number, or the cell becomes text and stops adding up. Enter the plain number and apply a currency format (Format → Number → Currency), choosing € or £ from the symbol list.

Euro and Pound Signs in LaTeX

\pounds has been in LaTeX since the beginning and works in both text and math mode, where it is typeset by \mathsterling as an italic £. \textsterling is the text-mode symbol and is the better choice in running text. For the euro you have two options. \texteuro is part of the LaTeX kernel (it came from the textcomp package, merged into the kernel in 2020, so \usepackage{textcomp} is only needed on an installation older than that) and prints whatever euro glyph your text font provides; in Computer Modern that is a serviceable but plain design. The eurosym package gives \euro, a dedicated glyph that matches the weight and slant of the surrounding text, plus \EUR{20} for a formatted amount and \officialeuro for the Commission's official geometric design. Load it with \usepackage[official]{eurosym} or [gen] to choose the default shape.

The same kernel set provides \textyen, \textcent, \textwon, \textlira, \textnaira, \textdong, \textpeso, and \textcurrency (the generic ¤). The Indian rupee needs the tfrupee package or a Unicode font, and the ruble and newer signs are easiest under XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX, where you can type ₽ directly. Put a thin space between number and sign where your locale wants one: 20\,\texteuro.

siunitx has no currency units built in, but \DeclareSIUnit lets you define them so that prices get the same thousands separators and spacing as everything else. Units are typeset in math mode, so wrap text symbols in \text{}. This snippet compiles with any current TeX distribution:

1\documentclass{article}
2\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
3\usepackage{eurosym}
4\usepackage{siunitx}
5\DeclareSIUnit{\eur}{\text{\texteuro}}
6\DeclareSIUnit{\gbp}{\text{\textsterling}}
7\begin{document}
8Euro: \texteuro 20, \euro 20, \EUR{20}, and 20\,\euro.
9
10Pound: \pounds 10, \textsterling 10, and in math $p = \pounds 10$.
11
12Yen and others: \textyen 100, \textcurrency, \textcent 50, \textwon 1000, \textlira, \textnaira.
13
14Narrow space: 20\,\texteuro{} and \texteuro\,20.
15
16With siunitx: \qty{1234.56}{\eur}, \qty{99.99}{\gbp}, and \num{1000000}.
17
18Italic: \textit{\pounds 5 and \texteuro 5}.
19
20Euro weights from eurosym: \euro{} \textbf{\euro} and \officialeuro.
21\end{document}
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Two details are worth knowing. First, the [T1]{fontenc} line is not optional if you ever write a dollar sign in italics: in the default OT1 encoding \textit{\$} prints £, which is the subject of https://www.useoctree.com/blog/dollar-sign-symbol-latex-currency-how-to-type. Second, \euro{} with the empty braces is needed before a space, because \euro 20 swallows the space after the command name; the same applies to every text symbol, including \texteuro. Other characters that LaTeX reserves or mishandles in text are listed at https://www.useoctree.com/learn/special-characters.

Other Major Currency Signs

The yen sign doubles as the yuan sign in China. The rupee sign was adopted in 2010 and the ruble sign in 2013, which is why both are missing from older fonts and from the Windows Alt-code table. For documents that mix company names and currencies, the ampersand guide at https://www.useoctree.com/blog/ampersand-and-symbol-meaning-how-to-type covers the other character LaTeX will not print as typed.

FAQ

How do I type the euro sign on a keyboard?

Windows: hold Alt and type 0128 on the numeric keypad, or press AltGr + 4 on a UK layout. Mac: Option + Shift + 2 on a US layout or Option + 2 on a British layout. Phones: long-press the $ key. In HTML use €, and in LaTeX \texteuro or \euro from eurosym.

How do I type the pound sign?

UK keyboards have it on Shift + 3. On a US layout press Alt + 0163 (Windows) or Option + 3 (Mac). In HTML write £, and in LaTeX \pounds or \textsterling.

Does the euro sign go before or after the number?

Before, with no space, in English and Irish usage: €20. After, with a space, in most other European languages: 20 €. The ISO code goes after the number in financial documents: 20 EUR.

Why does \euro give an "Undefined control sequence" error?

\euro lives in the eurosym package, so add \usepackage{eurosym} to the preamble. If you want to avoid the extra package, \texteuro is built into the kernel and needs nothing else.

Writing Prices Cleanly in Your Documents

Pick one convention for sign placement, use \texteuro or \euro and \textsterling in LaTeX with T1 encoding, and declare currency units in siunitx when a document is full of amounts. Octree, the AI LaTeX editor at https://www.useoctree.com, autocompletes the currency commands and compiles instantly so you can check that every € and £ lands where you expect.