# What's the point of those weird fonts such as wingdings **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871 "2014-03-30T01:19:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_York](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/1 "2014-03-30T01:19:21Z")
Why go to the trouble of designing fonts like wingdings etc? ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/2 "2014-03-30T01:30:47Z")
People use symbols all the time in documents, on the web, in text messages and so on. There are dozens of them on the page you’re looking at now. Symbol fonts are an efficient way of implementing that. The alternative would be to require someone to include an image file every time they use one, which introduces problems of efficiency, complexity, security, and accessibility. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/3 "2014-03-30T01:43:13Z")
To confuse you. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_York](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/4 "2014-03-30T01:54:04Z")
[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg) I typed out the alphabet in wingdings, this is what I looking at. I don’t see these symbols on this page. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/5 "2014-03-30T01:56:01Z")
Same idea as the smilies (nee “emoticons,” except I guess we’re supposed to call them “emoji” in some weird pseudo-Japanese now), except that some of them are meant for specialized uses–a lot of business list “bullets” come from there, as do the card symbols for bridge columns, the standard “phone” and “fax” images, checkboxes for forms, etc. The rest are just whimsical. Slightly different are the mathematical symbol fonts, meant for typesetting scientific and mathematical documents, that include various math symbols, greek letters, and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/6 "2014-03-30T01:57:24Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > People use symbols all the time in documents, on the web, in text messages and so on. There are dozens of them on the page you’re looking at now. Symbol fonts are an efficient way of implementing that. The alternative would be to require someone to include an image file every time they use one, which introduces problems of efficiency, complexity, security, and accessibility. This was more true before Unicode. These fonts tend to work via the fact that the visual glyph a character is mapped to is arbitrarily controlled by the font. So by putting symbols in a font, you could make “a” look like a symbol. Now with Unicode, as long as you can get it accepted and enough people to implement it, you can define a code point block without messing around with special fonts. See emoji: [Emoji - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji) ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_York](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/7 "2014-03-30T02:05:33Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > This was more true before Unicode. These fonts tend to work via the fact that the visual glyph a character is mapped to is arbitrarily controlled by the font. So by putting symbols in a font, you could make “a” look like a symbol. > > Now with Unicode, as long as you can get it accepted and enough people to implement it, you can define a code point block without messing around with special fonts. See emoji: [Emoji - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji) Thanks, in other words, nothing for me to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/8 "2014-03-30T02:24:31Z")
People were easily amused in the olden days. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/9 "2014-03-30T02:39:29Z")
So you know, the name Wingdings comes from [dingbat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat), the official name for typesetting fonts consisting of miscellaneous symbols instead of letters. As others have pointed out, Unicode largely obviates the need for dingbat fonts since you no longer have to squeeze every codepoint into seven bits. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/10 "2014-03-30T02:45:33Z")
I’ll often use a star for map making (to show a destination). Also arrows to indicate one way steets. Some symbol fonts provide the shapes for interstate hwy markers. When designing posters, putting bold symbols at the start and end of a line of text can create an old-timey feel. A symbol font like, like Wingdings, often provides a better selection of bullets and checkboxes than a normal text font. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/11 "2014-03-30T06:47:27Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Same idea as the smilies (nee “emoticons,” except I guess we’re supposed to call them “emoji” in some weird pseudo-Japanese now) Smilies are kaomoji, but these are just vertical: 🙂 Emoji are like Wingdings in Unicode (usually): Hail Cthulhu! ������ The name has nothing to do with emotions, or emo. It’s e + moji ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/12 "2014-03-30T06:50:10Z")
Test: �� _From my end_, looks like SDMB allowed me to post it, then killed it when I edited? Or my Unicode just broke. Edit: the latter. Keeps forcing me into Windows-1252 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/13 "2014-03-30T08:44:25Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > The name has nothing to do with emotions, or emo. It’s e + moji If my scant knowledge of Japanese serves, I’m guessing _e_ means ‘picture’ (as in _ukiyo-e_) and _moji_ means ‘typographic character’ (as in _mojibake_). ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/14 "2014-03-30T10:06:58Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Now with Unicode, as long as you can get it accepted and enough people to implement it, you can define a code point block without messing around with special fonts. Well… Unicode is mostly what I was thinking of actually (OP said “fonts like…” and I interpreted that liberally). Those unicode glyphs and emojis all live in a font. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/15 "2014-03-30T10:42:13Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > If my scant knowledge of Japanese serves, I’m guessing _e_ means ‘picture’ (as in _ukiyo-e_) and _moji_ means ‘typographic character’ (as in _mojibake_). Yep. Ukiyo-e is what I think about first too (mainly Kanagawa and proto-tentacles). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/16 "2014-03-30T14:37:46Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_York](#): > > [https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg) > > I typed out the alphabet in wingdings, this is what I looking at. I don’t see these symbols on this page. That’s webdings, I believe. If you look at the whole character set, there’s a number of useful symbols in there (I’ve used the play head icons and window icons. Heck, even that eye icon.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/17 "2014-03-30T14:42:03Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_York](#): > > [https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HlSIN9H-rRE/Uzd4Wn8QbvI/AAAAAAAAQ28/lko9Iuv1Ce8/w844-h168-no/wingdings.jpg) > > I typed out the alphabet in wingdings, this is what I looking at. I don’t see these symbols on this page. That’s webdings, I believe. If you look at the while character set, there’s a lot if useful symbols in there (I’ve used the play head icons and window icons. Heck, even that eye icon.) ETA: Also, type NYC in all caps. You should get something like eye heart city. This was intentional after typing the same letters in wingdings produced what some interpreted as an antisemitic message. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/18 "2014-03-30T15:10:09Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That’s webdings, I believe. If you look at the while character set, there’s a lot if useful symbols in there (I’ve used the play head icons and window icons. Heck, even that eye icon.) > > ETA: Also, type NYC in all caps. You should get something like eye heart city. This was intentional after typing the same letters in wingdings produced what some interpreted as an antisemitic message. Wow! Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of typographers? 🙂 (I’m kidding, of course. [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/wingdings.asp) has an excellent piece debunking the idea of a deliberate antisemitic slur.) ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/19 "2014-03-31T06:31:22Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_York](#): > > Thanks, in other words, nothing for me to worry about. Were you ever required to fill out a form document, where they asked you to check boxes? Some people put v or / or a square root symbol. Tip: use Wingdings for a more professional look. Also, playing card symbols. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871/20 "2014-03-31T09:00:04Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Also, playing card symbols. Don’t need Wingdings for cards. U+2660, 2663, 2665, 2666. I think there are other variations. Didn’t DOS even have these symbols? I remember from playing _Castle Adventure_ about 25 years ago. Your character, items, monsters, etc. were random symbols. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-those-weird-fonts-such-as-wingdings/684871.md?page=2)