Left Three Eighths Block
Copy and paste the left three eighths block symbol ▍ (U+258D) instantly. Part of the Block Elements Unicode block.
Works everywhere: websites, documents, social media, code editors
Character Codes
About This Symbol
- Name
- Left Three Eighths Block
- Unicode Block
- Block Elements
- Code Point
- U+258D
The Left Three Eighths Block (▍) is a Unicode character assigned to the Block Elements block at code point U+258D. This block contains characters used across a variety of applications including technical documentation, web development, mathematical notation, and everyday digital communication. The left three eighths block symbol can be inserted directly into text or referenced through its HTML entity, CSS code, or JavaScript escape sequence for use in websites and applications.
How to Use
- 1.Click "Copy Symbol" above to copy ▍ to your clipboard
- 2.Paste it anywhere with Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V on Mac)
- 3.Or use the HTML entity
▍in your code - 4.For CSS, use
\258Dwith the content property
Understanding Left Three Eighths Block
At code point U+258D, the left three eighths block (▍) occupies a carefully chosen position within the Block Elements allocation. The Unicode Consortium assigned this character to address the need for a reliable, cross-platform representation of this symbol in electronic documents and interfaces.
The hexadecimal value 258D places this character at decimal position 9613 in the Unicode table. At this position, the character falls 13 positions past the nearest hex boundary, a detail relevant for font engineers mapping glyph tables. For practical use, ▍ in HTML or \u{258D} in JavaScript are the most common insertion methods.
Known by its descriptive name referencing "left three," this character serves a specific role that generic symbols cannot fill. It appears in specialized typography, technical standards, and digital content where precision in symbol choice directly affects meaning or layout.
About Box Drawing & Block Elements
Box drawing characters and block elements are the building materials of text-mode interfaces. With single and double lines, corners, T-junctions, and crossings, they construct tables, windows, and borders entirely from character cells. Block elements — quadrants, shades, and fills — add rudimentary graphics capability to pure text environments. Together, they power terminal user interfaces, ASCII art, and retro-styled applications that evoke the aesthetic of early personal computing.
IBM's Code Page 437, released with the original PC in 1981, included a full set of box drawing characters specifically for creating text-based user interfaces. Before graphical operating systems, every DOS application — from Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets to Norton Commander file managers — relied on these characters to simulate windows, menus, and dialog boxes. Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) of the late 1980s and early 1990s elevated box drawing to an art form, with ANSI artists creating elaborate scenes using nothing but colored text characters. Unicode preserved all of IBM's original box drawing characters and added variants to support the full matrix of single-line, double-line, and mixed-weight combinations.
Common Uses
- •Terminal user interfaces and CLI application layouts
- •Plain-text table formatting in documentation
- •ANSI art and retro computing aesthetics
- •Progress bars and loading indicators in terminal apps
- •Text-based data visualization in server environments
Technical Notes: Correct rendering of box drawing characters requires monospaced fonts where each glyph occupies exactly one character cell and lines connect seamlessly at cell boundaries. Many modern fonts fail to align box drawing characters properly because their metrics assume proportional spacing. Terminal emulators like iTerm2 and Windows Terminal have special rendering paths to ensure these characters join without gaps. The block elements (U+2580–U+259F) provide eight shading levels and quadrant combinations that can achieve pseudo-pixel graphics at sub-character resolution.
Cultural Context: The demoscene and BBS art communities transformed box drawing from utilitarian UI components into a genuine art form. ANSI art competitions in the 1990s produced remarkably detailed works using only the 256 characters of Code Page 437. Today, a vibrant retro computing community continues creating terminal art, and modern tools like tmux and Neovim keep box drawing characters relevant in developer workflows. The aesthetic has inspired pixel art, lo-fi game design, and the entire genre of terminal-based roguelike games.