Unicode 6 Emoticons and Supporting Fonts

Xah Lee, 2011-01-28, …, 2013-03-03

Unicode version 6 is released in 2010-10.

This version adds 2088 chars. One thing interesting is that it adds about 608 emoticons, with names such as GRINNING CAT FACE WITH SMILING EYES 😸.

Apparently, emoticons are widely used in Japan in mobile phones, and it's called Emoji. For a full list, see Unicode Emoticons, Faces 😸.

Unicode 6 is nice in that it added many symbols i was looking for but unable to find before. The following are all from Unicode 6:

⏯ ⏩ ⏪ ⏭ ⏮ 👍 👎

Unicode 6 Font: Symbola, Segoe UI Symbol, Emoji

The following fonts supports many Unicode 6 symbols.

Symbola, a high quality free font. Download at Symbola702.zip. Original source: 〔Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts By George Douros. @ users.teilar.gr…〕.

Segoe UI Symbol is from Microsoft (in a Microsoft 7 update on 2012-08-16).

• Microsoft typography, Segoe UI Symbol (description) 2012-03-03 By Microsoft. @ www.microsoft.com…
• Microsoft Support: An update for the Segoe UI symbol font in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 is available 2012-11-22 By Microsoft. @ support.microsoft.com…

Emoji font from Apple, in OS X 10.7 (Lion) (released on 2012-07-20)

For general purpose Unicode fonts, see: Best Unicode Fonts for Programing.

For typing Unicode in emacs, see: Emacs and Unicode Tips.

Reference

• http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/
• U60-1F600.pdf.
• Emoji and Dingbats @ www.unicode.org