What superscript is
Superscript characters are small and sit above the normal line of text. They show up in maths (x²), science (10⁻³), footnotes (¹), ordinals (1ˢᵗ) and the trademark sign. In a word processor you get them with a formatting button. In a chat, a social post, a code comment or a spreadsheet, there is no button, and that is where this generator helps.
The output is made of real Unicode characters, so it keeps its raised look when you copy and paste it.
Using the superscript generator
- Type into Your text. Press Clear to empty the box.
- Three results appear at the top in large type: Superscript (keeps capitals), Superscript and Exponents (x^2 to x²).
- Press Copy next to the one you want and paste it.
- Scroll down to More styles to see your text in subscript, small caps and many other styles.
Pick the style by what you are writing:
- Exponents for maths and science. It only raises what follows a caret.
- Superscript (keeps capitals) for tiny raised words where capitals matter, such as a brand name.
- Superscript for an all-lowercase whisper effect.
Examples
All of these came from the tool above:
| You type | Style | Result |
|---|---|---|
E=mc^2 |
Exponents | E=mc² |
x^2 + y^2 |
Exponents | x² + y² |
x^(n+1) |
Exponents | xⁿ⁺¹ |
2^{10} |
Exponents | 2¹⁰ |
10^-3 |
Exponents | 10⁻³ |
| Hello World | Superscript (keeps capitals) | ᴴᵉˡˡᵒ ᵂᵒʳˡᵈ |
| Hello World | Superscript | ʰᵉˡˡᵒ ʷᵒʳˡᵈ |
| 1st 2nd | Superscript | ¹ˢᵗ ²ⁿᵈ |
| TM | Superscript (keeps capitals) | ᵀᴹ |
The sample in the box, E=mc^2, shows the difference between the styles. Exponents gives E=mc². Superscript (keeps capitals) raises everything, caret included: ᴱ⁼ᵐᶜ^². Plain Superscript gives ᵉ=ᵐᶜ^², because it does not convert the equals sign.
How it works
There is no single superscript alphabet in Unicode. The characters were added at different times for different jobs:
- Digits. ¹, ² and ³ are old Latin-1 characters (U+00B9, U+00B2 and U+00B3). The others, ⁰ and ⁴ to ⁹, live in the Superscripts and Subscripts block starting at U+2070, together with ⁺ ⁻ ⁼ ⁽ ⁾.
- Small letters. These are modifier letters made for phonetics, where ʰ marks a breathy sound. Some are in the Spacing Modifier Letters block, such as ʰ (U+02B0) and ˢ (U+02E2). Most are in Phonetic Extensions, such as ᵃ (U+1D43).
- Capital letters. A smaller set, also from Phonetic Extensions, such as ᴬ (U+1D2C) and ᴴ (U+1D34).
The gaps matter. There is no common superscript q at all. There are no capital superscript forms for C, F, Q, S, X, Y or Z, so the capitals style falls back to the small letter: “Sky Zone” becomes ˢᵏʸ ᶻᵒⁿᵉ.
The Exponents style looks for a caret followed by one of: a run of digits with an optional sign before or after, a single letter, or a group in round or curly brackets. Only that part is raised.
Tips
- Write units cleanly.
m^2gives m² andcm^3gives cm³, which read better than m2 in a product listing or chat. - Use brackets for anything long.
e^(i)gives eⁱ. Without brackets, only the first letter after the caret is raised. - Footnotes in plain text. Superscript digits make neat footnote markers in places that do not support formatting, such as a caption or a plain email.
- Read it at the real size. Superscript is small. On a phone, a full sentence of it is hard to read, so keep it to short labels.
Limits
These characters look like formatting but are separate symbols. Screen readers often say “superscript two” for ², which is fine in a formula. Read aloud, a sentence of superscript letters can come out as a list of phonetic symbols.
Search engines and find tools may treat ² differently from 2, so someone searching “m2” may not find m². Keep important terms in normal text as well.
Font support is good for digits and most letters on current devices. A few modifier letters can look slightly higher or larger than their neighbours in some fonts.
Related tools
For text that sits below the line, such as H₂O, use the subscript generator. For small caps and other tiny styles side by side, try the small text generator. To see the code point of every character you make, open the Unicode text converter.