Square Symbols

Filled ■ and hollow □ squares in six nominal sizes, from ⬝ up to ⬛, alongside rectangles ▬ ▭, diamonds ◆ ◇ and shaded boxes ▤ ▨. Click one to take it — pairing a filled and a hollow square, ■■■□□, is how a progress row gets built from two characters.

Copy and Paste Square Symbols

The grid holds 72 characters, and the useful axis through them is not shape but weight: nearly every square here exists as a filled version and a hollow one, at several sizes. ■ against □, ▪ against ▫, ⬛ against ⬜. Pick the pair that matches your text, then use one for "on" and the other for "off".

What Are Square Symbols?

Square symbols are Unicode text characters drawn as squares, rectangles and diamonds. Most come from the Geometric Shapes block at U+25A0 to U+25FF, with the large and half-filled ones added later at U+2B12 to U+2B1E and the coloured squares later still. They behave like letters: your font draws them, your text colour fills them, and they paste wherever text goes.

One thing to settle before anything else, because it sends a lot of people to the wrong page. "Square symbol" means three different things and only one of them is here:

The shape — ■ □ and the rest of this page. The squared exponent, as in 2², which is a superscript digit rather than a square at all; the superscript text generator turns any number into one. And the square root sign at U+221A, which is a mathematical operator rather than a shape and is not on this page or anywhere in these collections.

How to Use Square Symbols

Copying Square Symbols

Click any character in the grid and it lands on your clipboard bare, with nothing wrapped around it.

Pasting Square Symbols Into Apps

Ctrl+V on Windows and Linux, Cmd+V on Mac, long-press and Paste on a phone. Because these are text, they work in a display name, a spreadsheet cell, a plain-text checklist or a document that will be printed in black and white.

Choosing the Right Size of Square Symbols

Six nominal sizes exist, and the Unicode names give the order: ⬝ ⬞ very small, ▪ ▫ small, ◾ ◽ medium small, ◼ ◻ medium, ■ □ the plain pair, and ⬛ ⬜ large. What actually appears on screen is a font decision rather than a guarantee, so the ladder is a starting point — check the two you plan to pair before committing to them.

Types of Square Symbols

Filled and Hollow Square Symbols

■ and □ are the base pair and the two most used characters on this page. ▢ softens the corners, and ▣ sets a small black square inside a white one, which reads as a selected option rather than a filled block.

Patterned Square Symbols

Six squares carry a fill instead of a solid: ▤ horizontal lines, ▥ vertical, ▦ a grid, ▧ and ▨ diagonals each way, ▩ crosshatch. They were drawn for charts, where a black-and-white key needs several distinguishable blocks, and that is still what they are best at.

Half-Filled Square Symbols

A square can be filled on one side only: ◧ ◨ left and right, ⬒ ⬓ top and bottom, ◩ ◪ ⬔ ⬕ the four diagonal halves, and ◫ split by a line down the middle. ◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ fill a single quadrant instead. Together they make a coarse dial — useful for a rough proportion where a percentage would be false precision.

Rectangle Square Symbols

▬ ▭ lie flat and ▮ ▯ stand upright, filled and hollow in each direction. A row of ▬ reads as a bar rather than a row of blocks, which is the difference between showing a quantity and showing a count.

Diamond Square Symbols

A diamond is a square turned forty-five degrees, which is why they sit here: ◆ ◇ filled and hollow, ◈ with a small diamond inside, ◊ the narrower lozenge, and ⬖ ⬗ ⬘ ⬙ half-filled the four ways. The coloured 🔶 🔷 🔸 🔹 and 💠 are emoji versions.

Boxed Operator Square Symbols

⊞ ⊟ ⊠ ⊡ put a plus, minus, times or dot inside the square. ⊞ and ⊟ are the expand and collapse marks a file tree uses; ⊠ doubles as a crossed-out box on a form. ∎ is the end-of-proof square that closes a mathematical argument.

Coloured and Emoji Square Symbols

🟥 🟧 🟨 🟩 🟦 🟪 🟫 plus ⬛ ⬜ are emoji and arrive at a fixed colour and size whatever your text is doing. 🔲 🔳 are the square buttons, and 💎 the gem. Everything else on this page takes your text colour instead, which is the reason to prefer it in a document.

Best Uses for Square Symbols

Square Symbols as Checkboxes

□ for an open item and ■ or ▣ for a done one gives a checklist that survives being pasted into any plain-text field. Where you want a tick rather than a fill, the boxed marks live with the check mark symbols.

Square Symbols as Progress and Rating Rows

Repeat a filled square and finish with hollow ones — ■■■□□ — and you have a five-step bar from two characters, in your own text colour, that copies anywhere. The coloured emoji squares do the same job where a splash of colour is wanted and the surroundings will not be printed.

Square Symbols in Charts and Legends

This is what the patterned set was made for. ▤ against ▦ against ▩ stay distinguishable in black and white, where three shades of grey would not, so a legend in plain text still reads correctly after a photocopy.

Square Symbols Unicode Names and Codes

The names are literal and the pairs are adjacent: ■ is U+25A0 Black Square and □ U+25A1 White Square; ▪ U+25AA and ▫ U+25AB are the small pair; ◼ U+25FC and ◻ U+25FB the medium. Black and white in a Unicode name mean filled and hollow — they say nothing about the colour anything renders in, which is why □ is called white while appearing in whatever colour your text is.

On Windows, Alt+254 on the numeric keypad gives ■ — one of the shortest Alt codes there is, because the black square was in the original PC character set. The rest need their decimal values: 9633 for □, 9642 for ▪, 9643 for ▫, 9670 for ◆. Linux takes Ctrl+Shift+U then 25a0 and Enter. On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl+Cmd+Space and search for square.

Frequently Asked Questions About Square Symbols

How do I type the squared symbol for 2²?

That is a superscript digit, not a square. It is U+00B2 Superscript Two, and the superscript text generator converts any number or word into the superscript form, so 2 becomes ² and 3 becomes ³. Nothing on this page will do it — a square symbol is a shape.

What is the square root symbol?

U+221A, a mathematical operator rather than a shape. It is not in this collection and not elsewhere on this site, so a maths reference is the route to it. The similarity is only in the word "square" — nothing on this page will produce it.

What is the difference between ■ and ⬛?

Size and behaviour. ■ is a text character that takes your colour and sits at text size. ⬛ is an emoji, so most platforms draw it larger and in a fixed black whatever the surrounding text is doing. In a coloured heading, ■ follows the heading and ⬛ does not.

Why is □ called a white square when it looks like my text colour?

Because in Unicode names, black means filled and white means hollow. They describe the drawing, not the colour. □ is an outline, so it shows the background through the middle and the outline itself takes your text colour.

How do I make an empty square for a checklist?

□ is the plain one, ▢ has rounded corners, and ◻ is a size up. If the list also needs a ticked state, ■ or ▣ pairs with any of them, and the ballot boxes with real ticks are on the check mark symbols page.

Why does a square symbol show as a box or a question mark?

Whatever font is rendering the text has no glyph for that character — which is an unfortunate failure mode here, since the missing-glyph placeholder is itself a rectangle. ■ □ ▪ ▫ are supported almost everywhere; the half-filled and very small ones are the likeliest to be missing.

Related Collections for Square Symbols

Nine of these characters also serve as list markers on the bullet point symbols page — the same squares and diamonds, filed there by what they do rather than what shape they are. For boxes with ticks and crosses inside, see check mark symbols; for the round equivalents of this page's fill-and-size ladder, circle symbols. Everything else is on the symbol collections index.