How to print superscript 3 in C++

Unicode superscript 3, or ³ is \u00b3 in utf-16 and \xc2\xb3 in UTF-8.

Hence, this would work with cout, assuming your console is UTF8.

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "\xc2\xb3" << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

To set your console in UTF-8 mode, you can do it in a number of ways, each is OS dependent, if needed at all. On Windows, you can run chcp 65001 from the command prompt before invoking your code:

If you can barely make out ³ getting printed above, let's zoom in closer:

Alternatively, you can do this in code via a Windows API, SetConsoleOutputCP

SetConsoleOutputCP(65001);

So this works as well from a Windows program without having to do any environment changes before running the program.

#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    SetConsoleOutputCP(65001);
    std::cout << "\xc2\xb3" << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

If you prefix the expression with a 0, the compiler considers this value to be represented in the octal radix. Values in octal radix must be in the range of [0,7]. The value 9 in the 0179 expression is outside of the octal radix range.

Try the following solution to print superscript 3:

std::cout << "x\u00b3" << std::endl;

The result: x³

References

• How to print subscripts/superscripts on the screen in C++?