Unicode Font Guide

What is Unicode?

Unicode is an international standard which defines codes for characters and symbols used in electronic devices and communication.

The purpose of this standard is to represent characters in a way that they could be understood by all computer systems and programs regardless of the different operation systems that may be in use. This way, any symbol or letter will have its own unique code which remains the same no matter what device or system is used to display it. The standard also includes emojis and various characters for decorative use.

Unicode includes all the different characters needed in all the worlds languages. As the standard is rather recent, not every symbol had a Unicode equivalent at the time it was released, which is why there is also a set of special symbols and letters for decorative use.

How does Unicode Encoding Works?

It may help understanding how Unicode works to remember that every character in Unicode has a code point, which is a unique code that represents it. The code point is often abbreviated as “U+” followed by the characters hexagonal code. For example: The regular “A” has a code point of U+0041, while the same letter but in mathematical bold has a code point of U+1D400. The encoding itself is rather simple: every key stroke is converted by the devices operating system to the appropriate code point. The system can then either display the character on the screen or save it in memory in whatever format is required. All the fancy Unicode characters have their own code points that can be used the same way.

The fancy font generator works by replacing the characters in whatever text is inputted with similar looking characters that use special Unicode code points. This works as the computers operating system is able to interpret these code points and display the appropriate character. It should be noted that the generator does not actually change the format of the text in any significant way.

As Unicode code points work across all platforms, any fancy text generated can be used anywhere, even with social media and messaging apps. The encoding is handled by the operating system, not a specific program or font.

Unicode Blocks and Character Categories

Unicode characters are divided into blocks and categories that describe what symbols can be found in each block. Here are some of the blocks that define how fancy font works:

Basic Latin (U+0000 – U+007F)

This block is also known as the ASCII printable characters and contains the most regularly used letters, numbers and symbols. This is the set of characters that most keyboard layouts use when typing. Fancy font works largely with characters from this block as it substitutes the regularly used letters and numbers for their Unicode alternatives.

Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols (U+1D400 – U+1D7FF)

This block contains variations of the regular Latin letters and Greek letters as well as some extra symbols. These are grouped together as mathematical bold, italic, etc. The letters are available in multiple variations including bold, italic, script, fraktur, double struck and monospace. Many of the different fancy font styles use these variations of regular characters.

Enclosed Alphanumerics (U+2460 – U+24FF)

This block contains several variations of circled letters and numbers and is used for bubble text and square text. This is the block that gives us the characters: Ⓐ Ⓑ Ⓒ and ① ② ③

Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs

Several blocks contain pictographic characters that are used in some of the more thematic fancy fonts. Some examples include the Christmas font or the heart font, which make use of characters like ★ ☆ ✦ ♥ ❤ 💖 .

General Unicode Font Characteristics

The way Unicode works means that the fancy Unicode characters will be displayed on screen consistently across different devices. This is rather unique to Unicode as it would take special fonts to achieve a similar effect on non-Unicode enabled systems. One of the main advantages of the Unicode system is that it comes built into all major operating systems, which is why the fancier variations of regular characters work across all platforms without issue. In short: any device that can display Unicode text can also display fancy Unicode text.

Operating systems such as Windows, iOS, macOS, Android and Linux all have built in fonts that support Unicode. This means that any applications that use text, including social media platforms and email clients, will be able to display fancy Unicode characters as well. It is important to note that it is the operating system that allows the display of Unicode text, not the individual programs. While most apps and websites will be able to display fancy Unicode characters, some may not or may only partially support it.