Angle brackets or chevrons have limited uses in everyday writing, although they are common in maths and some programming languages. Most of us will encounter them when wanting to describe an IT pathway.

Body text

Use a single right-facing bracket for instructions or a file path

To hide an Excel worksheet: Format > Sheet > Hide.

Use angle brackets for short instructions about computer-based tasks, such as:

navigating folders or directories to find a file
completing a series of steps when using a computer interface.

Use the bracket that looks like an arrow pointing right and put spaces around it.

For longer or more complex instructions, use a numbered list.

Go to Insert > AutoText > New...

Please file this document under Finance > Annual projections > Sales revenue.

There is no need to enclose URLs or email addresses in angle brackets, as word processing programs automatically format these as hyperlinks without them.

See also: Brackets ( ) [ ] < > { }, Email addresses, Hyperlinks, Web addresses