Webdings Translator

What is Webdings?

Webdings is a picture font that Microsoft released in 1997. It was designed by Vincent Connare, Sue Lightfoot, Ian Patterson and Geraldine Wade and first shipped with Internet Explorer 4.0. The idea was simple: in the early web, every image was a slow download, but a font is tiny. With Webdings a page could show houses, cars, speakers and media buttons as text.

Compared with Wingdings, Webdings is more literal. Capital letters are mostly places and buildings, small letters are vehicles and everyday objects, and the numbers and punctuation hold window controls, media player buttons and speech bubbles. “Hello” in Webdings becomes 🏠︎📦︎🟈︎🟈︎🛥︎.

The “I love New York” easter egg

Five years before Webdings, users had found that typing NYC in Wingdings produced a skull, a Star of David and a thumbs up. When Connare designed Webdings he placed an eye on N, a heart on Y and a city skyline on C on purpose, so the same three letters read as “I love New York”: 👁︎🎔︎🏙︎. Try it in the translator above.

Webdings alphabet

All the pictographs in Webdings that were not already in Unicode were added to the standard in version 7.0 in June 2014. That is what lets this translator produce Webdings symbols you can paste anywhere, without the font installed.

Tips for Webdings messages

• Keep emoji-proof output on. Many Webdings pictures, such as the trophy 🏆︎ or the bicycle 🚲︎, are also emoji and phones may show them in colour.
• Use it for picture puzzles. Webdings is great for rebus style clues where the picture hints at a word.
• Check older devices. A few rare Webdings symbols need a recent operating system. If a friend sees empty boxes, send them a Share link so the message opens here.

See every Webdings character on the character map.