What makes Webdings different
Webdings was drawn for screens, not for print, and it shows in what the font contains. Microsoft shipped it with Internet Explorer 4 in 1997, folded it into the Core fonts for the Web, then bundled it with Windows from Windows 98 onward. That is why almost every machine already has it.
The result is closer to a pictogram set than a box of ornaments. Its 217 symbols describe places, transport and interface controls.
Uppercase is mostly buildings and landscape. A to M runs through construction, houses, a factory, a beach, an island and a mountain.
Lowercase turns to transport and public signage: a bicycle, an ambulance, a fire engine, a metro, a bus, a locomotive and a no-smoking sign.
The digits are pure interface. 0 to 2 give window controls, then 3 onward gives the playback triangles ⏴⏵⏶⏷ you still see on every media player.
One flourish is worth knowing. Typing NYC produces 👁︎🎔🏙︎, an eye, a heart and a skyline, which Microsoft set deliberately in 1997.
It answers something readers had spotted on those same three keys five years earlier. The 1992 episode is the fuller story.
How to tell if your symbols are Webdings
Your symbols are Webdings if they look like play buttons, window controls, vehicles or little buildings. Wingdings runs to hands, zodiac signs, weather symbols and checkboxes instead, drawn in an older and more ornamental style. The four keys below tell the two fonts apart on sight.
| Key | Wingdings | Webdings |
|---|---|---|
N | 🕱 | 👁︎ |
H | 🖗 | 🏠︎ |
4 | 🗐 | ⏵ |
b | ♌︎ | 🚲︎ |
The look is the quicker tell. Webdings icons are solid, squared off and modern; Wingdings symbols are finer and more ornamental.
If your text is arrows almost end to end, it is neither. The third Wingdings font is the one made of arrows.
Want the two set side by side properly? A full comparison covers origins, contents and which to use now.
Webdings character chart
A sample of the map, spread across the font. Every symbol here is real text you can copy, not a picture of one.
| Key | Symbol | Name | Unicode | Copy symbol |
|---|---|---|---|---|
C | 🏙︎ | Cityscape | U+1F3D9 | |
H | 🏠︎ | House building | U+1F3E0 | |
L | 🔍︎ | Left-pointing magnifying glass | U+1F50D | |
4 | ⏵ | Black medium right-pointing triangle | U+23F5 | |
8 | ⏩︎ | Black right-pointing double triangle | U+23E9 | |
a | ✔︎ | Heavy check mark | U+2714 | |
h | 🚑︎ | Ambulance | U+1F691 | |
z | 🚭︎ | No smoking symbol | U+1F6AD |
That is eight keys of 217. Every remaining one is listed on the A to Z reference tables, alongside the other three fonts.
Working in a document rather than a browser? See how these symbols behave in Google Docs.
Webdings translator FAQ
Is Webdings the same as Wingdings?
Webdings is a different typeface from Wingdings, designed later and for the web rather than for print and office documents. No key produces the same symbol in both, so text written in one is unreadable if you decode it with the other.
What does NYC spell in Webdings?
Typing NYC in Webdings gives an eye, a heart and a city skyline, which reads as I Love New York. Microsoft placed it there deliberately in 1997, as a nod to what people had found on the same three keys in Wingdings.
Do I need the Webdings font installed?
You need Webdings installed only to type in it. Windows has included it since Windows 98 and macOS ships it too, so you almost certainly have it. Reading symbols on this page needs nothing installed, whatever device you are on.