Triangle Symbols

Three families of triangle

Unicode has dozens of triangle characters, but they fall into a few families. The main one is the Geometric Shapes block, which holds ▲ △ ▼ ▽ ◀ ▶ ◁ ▷, the small triangles ▴ ▾ ◂ ▸ and the corner triangles ◢ ◣ ◤ ◥. These were designed for diagrams and user interface markers. A second family is mathematical, with ∆ (INCREMENT) and the Greek delta Δ. The third is emoji, such as 🔺 and ⚠, which always draw in colour.

Knowing the family tells you how a triangle will behave. Geometric shapes take the colour of the text, scale with the font size and are normally flat. Emoji ignore the text colour. Math symbols are meant to be sorted and searched as maths.

Solid, outline and size

Each pointing direction comes as a pair: black and white. The black ones, ▲ ▼, are filled. The white ones, △ ▽, are outlines. That naming comes from the era when Unicode described shapes as black or white regardless of the page colour, so “white” never means a white fill. The pair design makes them handy for toggles: ▶ for collapsed and ▼ for expanded is the traditional disclosure pattern, and you can mimic it in plain text.

Triangles also come in several sizes. ▲ is a standard size, ▴ is the small version, and some fonts include a still smaller one. The sizes are not standardised between fonts, so ▲ in one font may look larger than ▲ in another. If you are lining triangles up with text, the small ones usually sit more neatly on the baseline.

The ▶ and ◀ exception

Most triangles are plain shapes, but ▶ (U+25B6) and ◀ (U+25C0) also exist as emoji, since the emoji set includes play and reverse buttons. On a phone that means a ▶ you paste may show up as a coloured square button. The choice is made by the app, and a variation selector, an invisible character that follows the symbol, can request one style or the other. Support is uneven. If you want the flat look reliably, use ▷, ► or ▸, which are not on the emoji list. The same issue applies to ⚠, which looks like a yellow sign on many phones.

Corner triangles for design

The four corner triangles ◢ ◣ ◤ ◥ fill half of a square along a diagonal. Used in sequence they draw stepped shapes, zigzag edges and ribbon ends in plain text. Because their edges are meant to meet, they only work properly in a monospace font. In a proportional font the gap between characters leaves visible seams. Use them for short decorative lines, not large patterns.

A related trick is the sequence ◢◤ repeated, which draws a sawtooth line. It reads as a decorative divider, and it displays reasonably well when it is short. For longer separators, see the divider symbols page.

Triangles with meaning

Some triangles carry a meaning that is not just shape:

• ▲ and ▼ are widely read as up and down, increase and decrease, and are used in financial tables.
• ∆ is the mathematical increment, and Δ is “change in” in science. Use these where the meaning is maths.
• ⚠ is the general warning sign, and 🔺 and 🔻 are red marker emoji.
• ‣ is a TRIANGULAR BULLET and ▸ is a small right-pointing marker, both used for list items.

How to type a triangle

1. Windows Alt codes. Hold Alt and type 30 for ▲, 31 for ▼, 16 for ► and 17 for ◄ on the numeric keypad. These are legacy codes, and ► and ◄ are slightly different shapes from ▶ and ◀.
2. Word. Type 25B2 and press Alt then X to convert it to ▲. Use 25BC for ▼.
3. Mac. There is no Option shortcut. Use the Character Viewer, opened with Control, Command and Space, and search for triangle.
4. iPhone and Android. Emoji keyboards offer 🔺 and ▶ but not the whole geometric set. Use a symbols keyboard or copy from this page.
5. Text replacement. Define a shortcut such as “tri” to expand to ▲.

Only the Alt codes in step 1 are classic. Everything else uses Unicode lookups.

Accessibility

Screen readers announce each triangle by its full name, such as “black up-pointing triangle”, so a row of them is long to listen to. Do not use triangles to replace the real list markup in a web page, and do not rely on ▲ and ▼ alone to show direction in data, because colour-blind and screen reader users may not get it. Put a text word beside the symbol. The fancy text accessibility guide covers this further.

Related shapes

Triangles often appear alongside other geometric marks. The circle symbols page covers dots and rings, and the diamond symbols page covers rhombus shapes. For pointers and directions, see arrow symbols.