Dingbats is a
Unicode block
A Unicode block is one of several contiguous ranges of numeric character codes ( code points) of the Unicode character set that are defined by the Unicode Consortium for administrative and documentation purposes. Typically, proposals such as the ...
containing
dingbat
In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or as ...
s (or typographical ornaments, like the ❦ FLORAL HEART character). Most of its characters were taken from
Zapf Dingbats
ITC Zapf Dingbats is one of the more common dingbat typefaces. It was designed by the typographer Hermann Zapf in 1978 and licensed by International Typeface Corporation.
History
In 1977, Zapf created about 1000 (or over 1200 according to Lino ...
; it was the Unicode block to have imported characters from a specific typeface; Unicode later adopted a policy that excluded symbols with "no demonstrated need or strong desire to exchange in plain text," and thus no further dingbat typefaces were encoded until
Webdings
Webdings is a TrueType dingbat typeface developed in 1997. It was initially distributed with Internet Explorer 4.0, then as part of Core fonts for the Web, and is included in all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 98. All of the picto ...
and
Wingdings
Wingdings is a series of dingbat fonts that render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Ce ...
were encoded in Version 7.0. Some ornaments are also an
emoji
An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conv ...
, having optional presentation variants (called variant selectors).
The block, originally named "Zapf Dingbats", was added to the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
Standard in October 1991, with the release of version 1.0. The block name was changed from "Zapf Dingbats" to "Dingbats" in June 1993, with the release of 1.1.
Chart
Emoji
The Dingbats block contains 33
emoji
An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conv ...
.
40
standardized variants are defined to specify emoji-style (like ) or text presentation (like ) for twenty base characters.
Emoji modifiers
The Dingbats block has four emoji that represent hands.
They can be modified using U+1F3FB–U+1F3FF to provide for a range of
human skin color
Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or indiv ...
using the
Fitzpatrick scale
The Fitzpatrick scale (also Fitzpatrick skin typing test; or Fitzpatrick phototyping scale) is a numerical classification schema for human skin color. It was developed in 1975 by American dermatologist Thomas B. Fitzpatrick as a way to estimate th ...
:
Additional human emoji can be found in other Unicode blocks:
Emoticons
An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings ...
,
Miscellaneous Symbols
Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trigr ...
,
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing meteorological and astronomical symbols, emoji characters largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS, and characters originally fro ...
,
Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs
Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing emoji characters. It extends the set of symbols included in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block. It also includes Typikon symbols.
Emoji
The Unicode 14.0 Suppleme ...
,
Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A
Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A is a Unicode block containing emoji characters. It extends the set of symbols included in the Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs block.
All of the characters in the Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A block ...
and
Transport and Map Symbols
Transport and Map Symbols is a Unicode block containing transportation and map icons, largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' emoji implementations of Shift JIS, and to encode characters in the Wingdings and Wingdings 2 char ...
.
History
The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Dingbats block:
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Version
Version may refer to:
Computing
* Software version, a set of numbers that identify a unique evolution of a computer program
* VERSION (CONFIG.SYS directive), a configuration directive in FreeDOS
Music
* Cover version
* Dub version
* Remix
* ''Ve ...
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L2 ID !!
WG2 ID !! Document
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N3681
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N3607
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, colspan="6" , {{reflist, group=lower-alpha, refs=
[Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names]
[See als]
L2/10-458L2/11-414L2/11-415
an
L2/11-429
/ref>
[Refer to the history section of the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block for additional emoji-related documents]
[{{Cite web, title=L2/13-207, url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2013/13207-emoji.html, access-date=2023-01-11, website=www.unicode.org]
[See als]
L2/15-198
an
L2/15-275
/ref>
[Japanese translation of N3582 is available a]
N3621
/ref>
See also
* Ornamental Dingbats, another Unicode block
References
Unicode blocks