What people use it for
- m2 and cm3 Area and volume in listings, quotes and specs, the way they should read.
- H2O and CO2 Chemistry formulas and isotopes without opening a formula editor.
- x2 + y3 Exponents for homework, notes, slides and chat messages.
What superscript text is for
A superscript generator turns ordinary characters into the small raised ones: the 2 in m2 becomes m², the 3 in x3 becomes x³. They are normal Unicode characters, so whatever you copy keeps its shape inside WhatsApp, Word, Google Docs, Instagram, a spreadsheet cell or an email subject line.
The subscript side is the mirror image, for the numbers and letters that sit below the line: the 2 in H2O, the variable names in x1 and x2, the index in a chemical formula. You type once and copy whichever version you need.
Where the characters come from
Every symbol below is a single character in the Unicode standard, not formatting, which is why it survives a copy and paste into plain text fields.
| Set | Characters |
|---|---|
| Numbers | ⁰ ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹ ⁺ ⁻ ⁼ |
| Letters | ᵃ ᵇ ᶜ ᵈ ᵉ ᶠ ᵍ ʰ ⁱ ʲ ᵏ ˡ ᵐ ⁿ ᵒ ᵖ ʳ ˢ ᵗ ᵘ ᵛ ʷ ˣ ʸ ᶻ |
| Subscript | ₀ ₁ ₂ ₃ ₄ ₅ ₆ ₇ ₈ ₉ ₐ ₑ ₕ ᵢ ⱼ ₖ ₗ ₘ ₙ ₒ ₚ ᵣ ₛ ₜ ᵤ ᵥ ₓ |
What it does not do
Some characters have no raised twin: the comma, the period, the comma in a list and the em dash stay on the normal line, so a sentence converted end to end looks uneven. That is a limit of the character set, not of the tool. Short strings, formulas and units come out clean.