Block Elements is a Unicode block containing square block symbols of various fill and shading. Used along with block elements are box-drawing characters, shade characters, and terminal graphic characters. These can be used for filling regions of the screen and portraying drop shadows. Its block name in Unicode 1.0 was Blocks.[3]

Block Elements
RangeU+2580..U+259F
(32 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsCommon
Symbol setsBlock fills
Assigned32 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
1.0.0 (1991)22 (+22)
3.2 (2002)32 (+10)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

Character table

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Code Result Description
U+2580 Upper half block
U+2581 Lower one eighth block
U+2582 Lower one quarter block
U+2583 Lower three eighths block
U+2584 Lower half block
U+2585 Lower five eighths block
U+2586 Lower three quarters block
U+2587 Lower seven eighths block
U+2588 Full block
U+2589 Left seven eighths block
U+258A Left three quarters block
U+258B Left five eighths block
U+258C Left half block
U+258D Left three eighths block
U+258E Left one quarter block
U+258F Left one eighth block
U+2590 Right half block
U+2591 Light shade
U+2592 Medium shade
U+2593 Dark shade
U+2594 Upper one eighth block
U+2595 Right one eighth block
U+2596 Quadrant lower left
U+2597 Quadrant lower right
U+2598 Quadrant upper left
U+2599 Quadrant upper left and lower left and lower right
U+259A Quadrant upper left and lower right
U+259B Quadrant upper left and upper right and lower left
U+259C Quadrant upper left and upper right and lower right
U+259D Quadrant upper right
U+259E Quadrant upper right and lower left
U+259F Quadrant upper right and lower left and lower right

Font coverage

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Font sets like Code2000 and the DejaVu family include coverage for each of the glyphs in the Block Elements range.[4] Unifont also contains all the glyphs.[5] Among the fonts in widespread use,[6][7] full implementation is provided by Segoe UI Symbol.[4]

The glyphs in Block Elements each share the same character width in most supported fonts, allowing them to be used graphically in row and column arrangements. However, the block does not contain a space character of its own and ASCII space may or may not render at the same width as Block Elements glyphs, as those characters are intended to be used exclusively for monospaced fonts.

Compact table

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Block Elements[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+258x
U+259x
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0

History

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The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Block Elements block:

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  • U+220E END OF PROOF in the Mathematical Operators Unicode block.
  • U+25A0 BLACK SQUARE in the Geometric Shapes Unicode block.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. ^ "3.8: Block-by-Block Charts" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. version 1.0. Unicode Consortium.
  4. ^ a b "Font Support for Unicode Block 'Block Elements'". Retrieved 2016-03-13.
  5. ^ "GNU Unifont Glyphs". Unifoundry.com. Retrieved 2013-11-12.
  6. ^ "Mac OS X 10.5 bundled with Arial Unicode MS". Archived from the original on 2013-01-07. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
  7. ^ "Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac equivalents". Retrieved 2008-09-17.