Squared symbol ²

• Area units: 1,200 ft² (square feet), 50 m², 4 in². In US real estate listings, “sq ft” is just as common.
• Exponents: x², 5² = 25, a² + b² = c².
• Physics: acceleration in m/s² or ft/s², as in g ≈ 32.2 ft/s².
• Statistics: R² and χ² (chi-squared).
• Plain-text fallback: where superscripts aren’t possible, write x^2 or “sq ft.”

The ² character works anywhere plain text goes: file names, social media posts, spreadsheet cells, chat messages and form fields that strip formatting.

There are two ways to get a raised 2:

• The character ² is a separate Unicode character. It survives copy and paste into any app.
• Superscript formatting (Ctrl+Shift+= in Word) shrinks and raises a normal 2. It looks better in long formulas but disappears when pasted as plain text, turning x² into x2.

Only ¹, ² and ³ come from the old Latin-1 character set. The other superscript digits (⁰ and ⁴ to ⁹) and letters such as ⁿ live in a separate Unicode block, and in some fonts the difference shows: ² and ⁴ can sit at different heights or weights. For exponents beyond 3, formatting or an equation editor usually looks better.

Don’t use ㎡, a single square-meter character from East Asian typesetting, in English text; write m².

• Mac: open the Character Viewer with Control+Command+Space and search “superscript two,” or set up a text replacement in System Settings > Keyboard.
• iPhone and Android: copy it here, or create a text replacement such as “sq2” → ².
• Excel: in a formula, use =A1^2. To show ft² in a label, type the ² character into the cell or a custom number format.
• Google Docs: select the 2 and press Ctrl+Period (Command+Period on a Mac) for superscript.
• LaTeX: x^2 in math mode, \textsuperscript{2} in text.