What ▊ means
It builds simple graphics from text characters.
Terminals with same-width character cells used partial blocks for graphics without bitmap images. The wider family includes forms inherited from IBM PC Code Page 437, GB 2312, KS X 1001, and terminal graphics sets.
Box-drawing lines, shading, and quadrant fills (blocks split into four parts) share this text-graphics tradition. Early Videotex, a screen-based information service, sent pictures made from mosaic blocks. Some fonts leave gaps between fractional blocks. As of 2026, VS Code's terminal can stretch Block Elements to a cell; test the whole bar in its destination.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsA technical or decorative block with no fixed message.
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
4
Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does ▊ 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.
More like this
12
Collections with ▊
3
How to type or find ▊
- Search it as
- progress bar · terminal graphics · text graphics · partial block
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
▊\258ACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.