// Tutorial //
How To Set UTF-8 Using meta charset in HTML
By Alligator.io
Introduction
UTF-8 is the most most common character encoding on the web. You can set UTF-8 encoding and other formats using the <meta charset> tag in HTML5.
Prerequisites
- A general knowledge of HTML5. For a comprehensive review of the HTML5 markup language, explore our series, How To Build a Website in HTML.
Using the <meta charset> HTML tag to set UTF-8
The first element after the opening <head> tag of your documents should be a <meta charset> tag to define the character set in use. The UTF-8 charset is the right choice for the modern web. Here’s the markup for it:
<meta charset="UTF-8">
This is how the charset definition works in HTML5
Conclusion
<meta charset> is only one of many common tags in HTML5.
For a more comprehensive review of the HTML5 markup language, explore our series, How To Build a Website in HTML.
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