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Included in:

- user-manual: Text Substitutions: Replacements
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The replacements substitution processes textual characters such as marks, arrows and dashes and replaces them with the decimal format of their Unicode code point, i.e. their <<char-ref-sidebar,numeric character reference>>.

// Table of Textual symbol replacements is inserted below
include::subs-symbol-repl.adoc[]

WARNING: The `replacements` element depends on the substitutions completed by the `specialcharacters` element.
This is important to keep in mind when applying custom substitutions to a block.
See the section about <<applying-substitutions,applying custom substitutions>> for more information.

The replacements substitution also recognizes {uri-xml}[HTML and XML character references] as well as {uri-unicode}[decimal and hexadecimal Unicode code points] and substitutes them for their corresponding decimal form Unicode code point.

For example, to produce the `&sect;` symbol you could write `\&sect;`, `\&#x00A7;`, or `\&#167;`.
When the document is processed, `replacements` will replace the section symbol reference, regardless of whether it is a named character reference or a numeric character reference, with `\&#167;`.
In turn, `\&#167;` will display as `&sect;`.

[#char-ref-sidebar]
.Anatomy of a character reference
****
A character reference is a standard sequence of characters that is substituted for a single character when Asciidoctor processes a document.
There are two types of character references: named character references and numeric character references.

A named character reference (often called a _character entity reference_) is a short name that refers to a character (i.e., glyph).
To make the reference, the name must be prefixed with an ampersand (`&`) and end with a semicolon (`;`).

For example:

* `\&dagger;` displays as &dagger;
* `\&euro;` displays as &euro;
* `\&loz;` displays as &loz;

Numeric character references are the decimal or hexadecimal Universal Character Set/Unicode code points which refer to a character.

* The decimal code point references are prefixed with an ampersand (`&`), followed by a hash (`&#35;`), and end with a semicolon (`;`).
* Hexadecimal code point references are prefixed with an ampersand (`&`), followed by a hash (`&#35;`), followed by a lowercase `x`, and end with a semicolon (`;`).

For example:

* `\&#x2020;` or `\&#8224;` displays as &#8224;
* `\&#x20AC;` or `\&#8364;` displays as &#8364;
* `\&#x25CA;` or `\&#9674;` displays as &#x25CA;

Developers may be more familiar with using *Unicode escape sequences* to perform text substitutions.
For example, to produce an `&#64;` sign using a Unicode escape sequence, you would prefix the hexadecimal Unicode code point with a backslash (`\`) and an uppercase or lowercase `u`, i.e. `u0040`.
However, Asciidoctor doesn't process and replace Unicode escape sequences at this time.
****

TIP: Asciidoctor also provides numerous built-in attributes for representing characters and symbols.
These attributes and their corresponding output are listed in <<charref-attributes-table>>.

The replacements substitution occurs within title, paragraph, example, quote, sidebar, and verse blocks.

.Elements subject to replacements text substitution
[width="40%", cols="3,^2"]
|===
|Element | `replacements` substitution

|Attribute Entry Value |{n}

|Comment |{n}

|Example |{y}

|Fenced |{n}

|Header |{n}

|Literal |{n}

|Listing |{n}

|Macro |{y}

|Open |Varies

|Paragraph |{y}

|Passthrough |{n}

|Quote |{y}

|Sidebar |{y}

|Source |{n}

|Special sections |{y}

|Table |Varies

|Title |{y}

|Verse |{y}

|===
