Pilcrow
Character used to denote a paragraph (¶) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the field of publishing, the pilcrow (¶) is a handwritten and a typographical glyph (visual character) used to identify a paragraph. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character also is known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph symbol, the paraph, and the blind P.[1]
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Pilcrow | |
In Unicode | U+00B6 ¶ PILCROW SIGN (¶) |
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Different from | U+00A7 § SECTION SIGN |
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![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Pilcrow_sign_in_fonts_Helvetica_Arial_Consolas_Garamond_Baskerville_Palatino_Gentium.svg/320px-Pilcrow_sign_in_fonts_Helvetica_Arial_Consolas_Garamond_Baskerville_Palatino_Gentium.svg.png)
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are used here, see this page.In writing and in editorial practise, authors and editors use the pilcrow glyph to indicate the start of separate paragraphs, and to identify a new paragraph within a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill.[2] In the Middle Ages, the practise of rubrication (type in red-ink) used a red pilcrow to indicate the beginning of a different train of thought within the author's narrative without paragraphs.[3]
The typographic character of the pilcrow usually is drawn like a lowercase letter-q, reaching from the descender to the ascender height; the bowl (loop) can be filled or empty. Moreover, the pilcrow can also be drawn with the bowl extended downward, to resemble a reversed letter-D.