Templates enabling the use or insertion of a character or characters that otherwise: are or can be "escape" or reserved characters within Wikipedia (due to HTML, wiki markup, etc; e.g. ((!!)) for two consecutive vertical bar ("pipe") symbols ("||"); may compromise HTML, wiki markup, etc that precedes or follows them (e.g. single quote marks beside wiki markup for italics or bold text). may tend to be illegible, even at normal (100%) font-size. The pages listed in this category are meant to be function templates, i.e. templates that produce text, images or other elements. This page is part of Wikipedia's administration and not part of the encyclopedia. Further template category notes This category contains pages in the template namespace. It should not be used to categorize articles or pages in other namespaces. To add a template to this category: If the template has a separate documentation page (usually called "Template:template name/doc"), add  [[Category:Character-substitution templates]] to the <includeonly> section at the bottom of that page. Otherwise, add  <noinclude>[[Category:Character-substitution templates]]</noinclude> to the end of the template code, making sure it starts on the same line as the code's last character.

For templates used to format and display Unicode characters and information about them (code point, formal name, etc.), see Category:Unicode character templates.