What ② means
It marks item two in a list. The circled 2 keeps numbering compact when list styling is unavailable.
Parenthesized forms echoed typewriter conventions for circled list labels. Unicode treats ② as equivalent to a comparable circled two from ITC Zapf Dingbats, a symbol font.
Use the circled form when the marker itself matters; plain 2 fits more fonts.
Font fallback may show a box or mismatched glyph.
Don't confuse it with
2Questions people ask
1Why does ② show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ②
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 2461, then Alt+X to get ②.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “circled digit two”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 2461, then Enter or Space.
HTML
②CSS
\2461how do I type ②?
On Windows, hold Alt and enter 9313 on the numeric keypad; app support varies.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
②
HTML hex
②
CSS content
content: "\2461";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%91%A1
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.