Decorative Dingbats

The Unicode Dingbats block (U+2700--U+27BF) is a 192-character collection of decorative symbols inherited from the Zapf Dingbats typeface designed by Hermann Zapf in the 1970s. These characters include pointing hands, scissors, pencils, stars, circled numbers, ornamental hearts, fleurons, and dozens of other symbols that have been used in print typography for centuries. This guide catalogs every major group of dingbat characters, explains their history, and provides code points for copying them into your projects.

History: From Metal Type to Unicode

Hermann Zapf and ITC Zapf Dingbats

In 1978, the legendary German type designer Hermann Zapf created the ITC Zapf Dingbats typeface for the International Typeface Corporation. The font contained no letters or numbers -- only ornamental symbols, decorations, and pictographs that typesetters could use to embellish printed pages. The name "dingbat" itself comes from early 20th-century printing terminology, where a dingbat was any typographic ornament or spacer used to decorate text.

Zapf Dingbats became enormously popular in desktop publishing during the 1980s and 1990s. Apple included it as a system font on the original Macintosh, and Adobe bundled it with PostScript printers. When the Unicode Consortium began encoding the world's characters, the Zapf Dingbats repertoire was included almost in its entirety in Unicode 1.0 (1991) at the block U+2700--U+27BF.

Why Dingbats Matter in Unicode

Dingbats occupy an interesting position in Unicode: they are neither letters nor mathematical symbols nor emoji. They are typographic ornaments -- symbols that predate the digital era and carry centuries of print design tradition. Many dingbats have since been duplicated or superseded by emoji (for example, the dingbat heart at U+2764 is the basis for the red heart emoji), but the original dingbat characters remain in Unicode as stable, widely-supported text characters.

Dingbats Block Overview (U+2700--U+27BF)

The block contains 192 code points. Here are the major groups:

Scissors and Writing Tools

The scissors characters (U+2701--U+2704) are among the most recognizable dingbats. The "cut here" scissor symbol ✂ appears on printed forms, packaging, and web interfaces worldwide.

Pointing Hands (Manicules)

The pointing hand symbols -- known in typography as manicules (from the Latin manicula, "little hand") -- have a history stretching back to 12th-century manuscripts where scribes drew pointing hands in margins to mark important passages. The right-pointing index ☞ was one of the most common ornaments in 19th-century printing and remains instantly recognizable today.

Stars and Asterisks

Unicode provides an extraordinary variety of star forms. The difference between ✦ (four points), ✴ (eight points), and ✶ (six points) gives designers precise typographic control without resorting to images.

Circled Numbers (Enclosed Alphanumerics)

While the primary Enclosed Alphanumerics block lives at U+2460--U+24FF, the Dingbats block contributes its own set of circled numbers:

The "negative" circled numbers (white digits on black circles) come directly from Zapf Dingbats. They are popular for numbered lists, step-by-step instructions, and infographics.

Ornamental Hearts and Fleurons

The floral heart ❦ (also called an aldus leaf or hedera) is one of typography's oldest ornaments, used since Roman times to mark paragraph breaks and section divisions.

Check Marks and Crosses

These symbols are staples of forms, checklists, and user interfaces.

Using Dingbats in Code

HTML Entities and CSS

Dingbats can be inserted directly into HTML or referenced by their Unicode code point:

<p>Step &#x2776; Open the file</p>
<p>Step &#x2777; Edit the content</p>
<p>&#x2714; Task complete</p>

In CSS, use the escaped code point in content properties:

.checked::before {
    content: "\2714";
    color: green;
}

Python

# Direct character literals
scissors = "\u2702"
check = "\u2714"
star = "\u2726"

# Print a numbered list with dingbat circled numbers
for i, item in enumerate(["Plan", "Execute", "Review"], start=1):
    circled = chr(0x2775 + i)  # U+2776 through U+277F
    print(f"{circled} {item}")
# Output:
# ❶ Plan
# ❷ Execute
# ❸ Review

JavaScript

// Dingbat check marks for status display
const STATUS = {
    done: '\u2714',    // ✔
    failed: '\u2718',  // ✘
    pending: '\u2726', // ✦
};

function showStatus(task, status) {
    console.log(`${STATUS[status]} ${task}`);
}

Font Support and Rendering

Most modern operating system fonts include the Dingbats block. On the web, common fallback stacks cover these characters well:

If you need guaranteed cross-platform rendering, specify a symbol font in your CSS fallback chain:

.dingbats {
    font-family: "Segoe UI Symbol", "Apple Symbols", "Noto Sans Symbols", sans-serif;
}

Dingbats vs. Emoji

Many dingbat characters have emoji counterparts. The relationship can be confusing:

The variation selector U+FE0F (emoji presentation) appended to a dingbat code point requests the colorful emoji rendering. Without it, the character should render in text style (monochrome, matching the surrounding font). However, many platforms now default to emoji presentation for certain dingbats regardless of the variation selector.

Practical Applications

• Print design: Fleurons ❦ ❧ as section dividers, stars ✦ as bullet points
• Forms and documents: Check marks ✓ ✔, ballot crosses ✗ ✘
• Step-by-step lists: Circled numbers ❶ ❷ ❸ for ordered sequences
• Ratings: Stars ✩ ✪ ✫ for review scores
• Navigation cues: Pointing hands ☞ to direct attention
• Technical documentation: Pencils ✎ ✏ to indicate editing, scissors ✂ for cut lines

The Dingbats block is a bridge between centuries of print typography and modern digital text. These 192 characters carry the weight of typographic tradition while remaining practical tools for everyday use in documents, interfaces, and code.