Wingdings symbols disappear when you paste them because Wingdings is a font, not a set of symbols: the character stored in the file is the ordinary letter you pressed, and the font paints a picture over it. Type J in Wingdings and the file holds U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J. The smiley is a drawing the font supplies at display time. Paste that text anywhere the font does not follow (a chat box, a form field, a browser tab, someone else’s computer) and the letter is what arrives, because the letter is what was always there. The fix is one substitution: use the Unicode character that is the symbol, such as U+263A WHITE SMILING FACE, which survives every paste because there is no font to lose.
What is actually stored when you type in Wingdings?
An ordinary Latin letter is stored, every time. The table below shows five of the most-used Wingdings glyphs, the character that is really in the document, and the drawing the font puts on screen.
| You type | What is stored | Wingdings draws |
|---|---|---|
J |
U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J | a smiling face |
L |
U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L | a frowning face |
N |
U+004E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N | a skull |
F |
U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F | an envelope |
8 |
U+0038 DIGIT EIGHT | scissors |
Nothing in that middle column knows anything about a symbol. This is the whole mechanism, and it is why the failure is so consistent: the text was never symbols, so there is nothing for the paste to carry.
Why does the symbol disappear when you paste it?
Because the destination applies its own font to your letters, and its font draws letters. Formatting travels only between places that agree to carry it: within one document, or between applications that exchange rich text. Three destinations lose it every time: a chat message box, a web form field, and any device that does not have Wingdings installed. In each case the recipient sees the letters, usually as a nonsense word such as JN8, which is exactly what the forum threads about this problem describe.
This also explains the version of the problem that arrives from the other direction: a document opened on a machine without the font shows letters where symbols used to be. The document never changed. The drawing did.
Which symbols survive a paste?
Unicode symbols survive, because the picture is the character rather than a drawing applied to one. Each of these carries its meaning in the codepoint itself, so it travels through anything that handles text at all.
| Wingdings glyph | Use this instead | Codepoint and name |
|---|---|---|
| smiling face | ☺ | U+263A WHITE SMILING FACE |
| frowning face | ☹ | U+2639 WHITE FROWNING FACE |
| skull | ☠ | U+2620 SKULL AND CROSSBONES |
| envelope | ✉ | U+2709 ENVELOPE |
| scissors | ✂ | U+2702 BLACK SCISSORS |
The rule that generates the whole list is short: if the symbol has its own Unicode codepoint, it is safe to paste. Our Wingdings translator converts between the two so you can see which letter corresponds to which glyph before you decide which version to send.
Does setting the font on the pasted text fix it?
It fixes it only where a font can be set, which is not where the question usually comes from. Applying Wingdings to the pasted letters works inside a word processor, a slide, or a design tool: anywhere the text keeps formatting and the font is installed. It does nothing in a chat message, a form field, a spreadsheet cell exported to CSV, or a filename, because those places store characters and nothing else. It is the most common answer in the forum threads on this problem, and it is right about half the time for reasons nobody in those threads states.
How do you type a Wingdings symbol on purpose?
Choose by destination rather than by preference. For a document that stays where it is (a printed handout, a slide deck, a PDF with fonts embedded) the font is fine, and it is what Wingdings was made for. For anything that leaves, use the Unicode character, because it is the only version that arrives intact. The test is a single question: will this text be read somewhere the font is not installed? If yes, the font cannot come with it.
Frequently asked questions
These come up alongside the main question and are answered here rather than in sections of their own.
Is Webdings the same problem?
It is the same mechanism with a different set of drawings. Webdings maps its glyphs onto ordinary characters in exactly the same way, so it fails to paste for exactly the same reason. Our comparison of the two sets is on the blog.
Why did my whole document turn into Wingdings?
That is a different fault: a font substitution on the machine, usually after an update, where the software cannot find the font a document asks for and picks a wrong one. Nothing was pasted and nothing was lost: the file still holds the original letters, and repairing the font install restores the display.
Do Wingdings symbols show in email?
Only if the mail is sent as rich text or HTML, the recipient’s client keeps the font instruction, and the recipient’s device has Wingdings installed. Three conditions, each of which fails often. A Unicode symbol needs none of them.
Wingdings does not survive a paste because the symbol was never in the text: the letter was, and the font drew over it. That is why the same string looks like a smiley in one place and like the letter J in another. Send the Unicode character instead, and the picture travels with the message, because the picture is the character.
