What ⑂ means
It marked a special character in OCR-A print.
OCR-A is a typeface for optical character recognition: machines read its printed text, while people could read it too. It developed in the 1960s. ISO 1073-1:1976 set its character shapes; ISO 2033:1983 covered coded characters for reading equipment.
Unicode groups it with OCR-A’s hook, chair, inverted fork, belt-buckle, and bow-tie marks.
Technical: an OCR-A machine-reading mark.
If it appears in a message, ask where it came from.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why can different fonts draw ⑂ differently?
They can: fonts draw text characters, so outlines may vary. The Unicode chart gives a reference design, not a fixed shape.
How to type ⑂
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 2442, 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 “ocr fork”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 2442, then Enter or Space.
HTML
⑂CSS
\2442Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
⑂
HTML hex
⑂
CSS content
content: "\2442";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%91%82
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.