ASCII 12
ASCII 12 is Form Feed — the control character FF.
Every representation
| Character | FF (not printable) |
| Name | Form Feed |
| Decimal | 12 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x0C |
| Octal | 0014 |
| Binary | 00001100 |
| HTML entity |  |
| Escape sequence | \\f |
| Unicode | U+000C |
| Keyboard | Ctrl+L |
| Group | Control character |
What it is for
Ejected the page on a printer. Still used as a page break in some plain-text documents and as a section separator in Lisp and Emacs source files.
Where the number comes from
Codes 0 to 31 were reserved for control: instructions to a teleprinter rather than characters to print. Code 12 is Ctrl+L because the Ctrl key was originally wired to clear the top two bits of whatever you typed, mapping the letter L at 76 down to 12.
Frequently asked questions
What is ASCII 12?
Form Feed (FF), a control character. In hexadecimal it is 0x0C, in octal 0014, and in binary 00001100.
How do I type ASCII 12?
Press Ctrl+L in a terminal. In a string literal you can write it as \\f or \\x0C in most languages.
Is ASCII 12 printable?
No. Codes 0 to 31 and 127 are control characters — they were instructions to a teleprinter rather than marks on paper, and most terminals show nothing for them.
Nearby codes
- ASCII 5 — ENQ
- ASCII 6 — ACK
- ASCII 7 — BEL
- ASCII 8 — BS
- ASCII 9 — HT
- ASCII 10 — LF
- ASCII 11 — VT
- ASCII 13 — CR
- ASCII 14 — SO
- ASCII 15 — SI
- ASCII 16 — DLE
- ASCII 17 — DC1
- ASCII 18 — DC2
- ASCII 19 — DC3
Full ASCII table · Text to binary converter · Number base converter