Wingdings & Webdings Font Icon Character Map (Printable Cheat Sheet)
All The Icons For The Wingdings and Webdings Fonts Translated
Hey there, design enthusiast! Have you ever stumbled upon those quirky symbols in your font dropdown and wondered, “What on earth is a Wingding?”
Well, you’re not alone. Wingdings and its sibling, Webdings, are icon fonts that have been jazzing up our documents for decades. Beyond their fun appearance, these fonts play a pivotal role in modern design and data visualization. Let’s dive in!
Here is a list of all the icons (by character) for:
Did you know there is another icon font in Excel with 10x more icons than Webdings or Wingdings? Be sure to check that font out as well. Most Excel users don’t even know it exists!
You can click on the below summary image to enlarge it and see all your icon options a little more clearly. Enjoy this translator map!
Free Printable Translator PDF For Your Office or Cubicle!
There are endless possibilities when you break out of the standardized conditional formats and incorporate icons into your data and charts. I personally use a cheat sheet I created some time ago and have it printed and hanging on my cubicle wall next to my computer to help translate which letters/symbols equate to the various Webding or Wingding fonts in Microsoft Excel.
If you would like to download the free PDF copy of my cheat sheet mentioned in this article, click the below button to instantly download my PDF file.
Popular Excel Icons You Might Be Looking For
Let’s face it, if you’re working inside Microsoft Excel, there are likely only a few symbols you might be utilizing for your dashboard or data table creations.
Below are some of the most popular keyboard symbols you can use within the Webdings and Wingdings character fonts.
| Icon Name | Icon Font | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Star | Wingdings | v (lowercase) |
| Heart Shape | Webdings | Y (uppercase) |
| Triangle (Up) | Wingdings 3 | p (lowercase) |
| Triangle (Down) | Wingdings 3 | q (lowercase) |
| Checkmark Symbol | Wingdings 2 | P (uppercase) |
| X Symbol | Wingdings 2 | O (uppercase) |
| Right Arrow | Wingdings 3 | g (lowercase) |
| Left Arrow | Wingdings 3 | f (lowercase) |
| Smiley Face | Wingdings | J (uppercase) |
| Small Circle | Wingdings | l (lowercase) |
| Large Circle | Webdings | n (lowercase) |
| Box | Webdings | g (lowercase) |
| Checkbox (Checked) | Wingdings 2 | R (uppercase) |
| Checkbox (Unchecked) | Wingdings | o (lowercase) |
| Folder | Wingdings | 1 (number) |
| Wingdings | * (asterisk) | |
| Phone | Wingdings | ( (parenthesis) |
History and Evolution of Icon Fonts
Back in the day, before emojis took over our lives, we had Wingdings and Webdings. These fonts originated as a solution to include symbols in documents without using images. Over time, their popularity grew, leading to the introduction of Wingdings 2 and Wingdings 3.
Nowadays there are more modern icon fonts you can download to your PC including Font Awesome and Remix Icon.
Font Name Proper Spellings
Many people mistakingly spell these fonts with an added space, writing “web dings” or “wing dings” with their keyboard. I’ve also seen people remove the “s”, calling the fonts “webding” or “wingding“.
The official names of the fonts are spelled “webdings” and “wingdings“.
Why are Icon Fonts Important?
I love using Icon Fonts because they can add great visualizations to your data and dashboards. You might be thinking…
“Chris, doesn’t Excel already have pre-built conditional formats that do that for you?”
Well, yes you are exactly right. BUT, while the conditional formats can be great, there are some instances where they really can be limiting and look unprofessional.
Let’s look at this simple Balanced Scorecard example:
In the scorecard examples above, I used the built-in Excel icon conditional formatting and then created a similar scorecard using the Webdings font (character “n”) and some conditional formatting to change the color.
The first thing you might notice is when you enlarge this image, the conditionally formatted circles are blurry (this is due to the increased font size). This looks very unprofessional and might distract/irritate your audience.
The second thing you might notice is with icon fonts I have the freedom to make the stoplights any color I want! This can make your tables match your company’s specific branding color palette, which will make it look amazing in presentations (and score you brownie points with your marketing department).
Let’s take a look at a second example.
In this table, I use Webdings (characters “p” and “q”) to add a visualization to the data that makes it much clearer to the audience. How much more appealing is that?!
How Do You Use Icon Fonts?
I quickly touched on a couple of ways I use icon fonts to make my data look more professional and understandable. I would love for you to comment below and describe how you plan on using icon fonts in your next project. Your experience or thoughts will help the whole TSG community (including myself) get ideas on how to improve our work. Thanks for stopping by!
Learn my best Excel chart design hacks. These will turn your ugly charts into professionally crafted graphics, leaving your boss speechless!!!
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Chris Newman
Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.