# & (ampersand) not working

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [May 24, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937 "2019-05-24T05:05:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sixfingeredamish](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/sixfingeredamish/32/1699_2.png) [@sixfingeredamish](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/sixfingeredamish)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937/1 "2019-05-24T05:05:37Z")

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Hi everyone,

I’m running into issues with &. When I put R&D into my .md post, it outputs as `R&amp;D` in the browser.

I have tried using both Kramdown and CommonMark and both have this issue.

I’ve also tried typing `R&amp;D` into my .md post but the browser still displays `R&amp;D` and not R&D.

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/jekyllrb/original/2X/8/8c1b4643147752b2b82a99455adfbc40f26bc1bc.png)

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**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:43am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937/2 "2019-05-24T06:43:00Z")

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Couple of questions:

- Are you using any third-party plugins? If yes, what are their names?
- Are you able to _reproduce this issue_ with a barebones site generated by running  
`jekyll new test-site` (and inserting text `R&D` in one of the pages / posts, obviously)?

If you answered `no` to both questions above, proceed to _customize_ the `test-site` to match your original site, step-by-step, (ensure that you restart the jekyll server after making changes to the config file).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sixfingeredamish](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/sixfingeredamish/32/1699_2.png) [@sixfingeredamish](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/sixfingeredamish)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:59am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937/3 "2019-05-24T06:59:48Z")

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Thanks for the help.

I debugged using your method and identified an unlikely culprit! I was using jekyll-hyphenate-filter which [breaks ampersands](https://github.com/grzm/jekyll-hyphenate_filter/issues/1)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 7:12am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/ampersand-not-working/2937/4 "2019-05-24T07:12:46Z")

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Glad I could help you.  
Happy Jekyllin’ ! 😄