Text Dividers for Newsletters and Emails (Copy and Paste)

How-To Guides · 2 min read · Published October 25, 2026

Quick answer: copy one of the dividers below into its own centred line. Short dividers built from common characters (─ • · ✦ —) display almost everywhere, including Outlook and phones. Keep them shorter than about 20 characters so they don't wrap on a phone. In an email builder, a real divider block is the most reliable option.

Quick reference: every method

Every Alt code below is verified against the real Windows code pages — where none exists we say so, rather than list one that won’t work.

Copy-ready dividers

Building blocks

More pieces: box drawing characters and dingbats. Alt codes work only on the numeric keypad (full list).

Will it work in email?

• Safest: ─ • · — and * show in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail and on phones.
• Usually fine: ✦ ⋆ ✧ ⁂, which most system fonts include.
• Riskier: ❦ ❧ ❀ and other ornaments, which may appear in a different style or as a box if the reader's device lacks them.
• Emoji risk: some symbols such as ✳ or ❇ can turn into colour emoji on phones (why).

Always send yourself a test email and open it on a phone and in Outlook before sending to a list.

A real line is often better

In HTML newsletters, a divider block or horizontal rule scales to every screen width, never wraps, and is announced simply as a separator by screen readers. A text divider is read character by character, for example "box drawings light horizontal" again and again (symbols and screen readers). If you use a text divider in HTML, hide it from screen readers with aria-hidden="true".

Want something bigger? Draw it in our ASCII editor. Related: symbols for Instagram bios and email signature symbols.

Frequently asked questions