What ( means
It starts a side note or a group.
Place the opening bracket before the extra words, then close with ). In prose, the enclosed words get less emphasis. An unmatched ( can mean an unfinished aside or a typo.
An aside can feel conversational; chains of asides can feel hesitant.
Do not hide the main instruction inside parentheses.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
2A numbered option or list label.
A sad face: the parenthesis is a mouth, not an opener.
Questions people ask
1Why does ( look backwards?
Mirroring. In right-to-left text such as Arabic or Hebrew, the curve can face the other way while remaining the opening mark. Check text direction before replacing it.
How to type (
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 0028, then Alt+X to get (.
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 “left parenthesis”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 0028, then Enter or Space.
HTML
(CSS
\0028Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
(
HTML hex
(
CSS content
content: "\0028";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
(
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
1
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.