Wingdings Font

About the Windings Font

Microsoft Windows comes with a unique dingbat typeface called Wingdings Font. The Windings font was originally developed in 1990 and 1991 by Microsoft. It was supervised under the direction of American type designers Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow. It’s a TrueType font that was originally developed for the pre-internet era. It was Previously it was called “Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars,” and that was intended to be a companion to the Lucida text font family. In 1992, the font was renamed and reorganized by Microsoft and released as Microsoft Wingdings.

Wingdings is a font that includes symbols and icons related to computers and graphical user interfaces. These symbols include icons for different computer hardware and software, as well as symbols with traditional and computer-related meanings. Wingdings also includes pointing hands, arrows, and shapes that can be used as bullets, asterisks, and ornaments. These symbols can be used in various graphical user interfaces, such as on a computer desktop or in a word processing program.

The font comes in an additional two different versions. Wingdings is the main style, and others are Wingdings 2 and Wingdings 3, which came later with additional symbols, icons, etc. Every version of Microsoft Windows from 3.1 to Windows 11/Server 2022 came with the proprietary font Wingdings.

The font is distinctive and unique, which makes it a popular choice for many designers. The original designers of Wingdings were awarded a patent for its design and glyph order, but Microsoft currently owns the trademark for the font.

What Could This Font Be Used For?

This font adds a unique and decorative touch to designs. It also includes a range of symbols and shapes that can be used to add visual interest and appeal to designs and documents. Wingdings’ font is scalable, which means it can be resized without losing quality. It is compatible with a variety of design software, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite.

Controversy About Windings

The characters “NYC” in Wingdings were found to be represented by a skeleton and crossbones symbol, a Star of David, and a thumbs-up gesture in 1992, not long after Windows 3.1 was released. Some people mistook this for an anti-Semitic message in reference to New York’s robust Jewish population. Basically, the final placement of the glyphs in the typeface was essentially random. Microsoft refuted claims that this glyph arrangement was deliberate.

An email that went viral at the time claimed that the Wingdings characters “Q33 NY” appeared as a plane crashing into two rectangular paper sheet icons, which were interpreted as skyscrapers, followed by the skull and crossbones symbol and the Star of David. This was allegedly the case after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Font Information

Font Family Name	Wingdings font
Style	Dingbat
Units Per EM	2048
Designer	Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow
URL	http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/designers/bandh/
License	Free for personal use
Date released	1990
Modified	1998
Format	TrueType
Language(s)	Dingbat ornaments
Foundry	Bigelow and Holmes, Microsoft Typography
Copyright	Copyright © 1992-1995 Microsoft Corp. All Rights Reserved. © 1990-1991 Type Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Trademark	The Windows logo is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Other Versions of Wingdings

Microsoft has released two versions beside Wingdings: Wingdings 2, and Wingdings 3. Each version includes a set of unique symbols and characters that can be used to add visual interest to designs.

Wingdings 2

Wingdings 2 is a TrueType font that was included with the Microsoft Office suite of applications. The Wingdings 2 font is a variation of the original Wingdings font, which was released in 1990. Wingdings 2 was introduced in 1992 and includes additional symbols that are not present in Wingdings 1.

Wingdings 2 includes approximately 200 characters that correspond to the 94 printable ASCII characters. If you write  a message in the Wingdings 2 font, the ASCII characters will be replaced with symbols from the font.

Please learn more about Wingdings 2.

Wingdings 3

A font that was introduced in the 2000s titled ‘Wingdings 3’ as part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. It is a TrueType font, which means it can be used in any program that supports TTF fonts, such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. The font includes approximately 200 characters, including symbols for the 94 printable ASCII characters just like the other Wingdings versions..

Overall, Wingdings 3 is a useful font for adding a touch of whimsy to documents and presentations, but it should not be relied upon for secure communication or data protection. Please learn more about Wingdings 3.

Factual Disadvantages of Wingdings

There are a few disadvantages to using Wingdings:

Wingdings is a TrueType font, which means it can only be used in programs that support TTF fonts. Some programs and devices may not support the Wingdings font, which can limit its compatibility. It is made up of symbols and characters that may be difficult for some people to interpret or understand. This makes documents hard to read, especially for people who are not familiar with the font. On the other hand, it is not  is not a suitable font for people with vision impairments as this font is exaggerated with symbols and characters. Our research proves that, Wingdings is not a secure method of encryption and should not be used for sensitive information. 

Alternative Fonts for Wingdings

We have researched using different tools and websites and discovered that there are no absolute similar fonts like Wingdings. But we have found some of the fonts which is quite similar to it and few of them are described below-

Some fonts that are similar to Wingdings include:

1. Tidbits font: This font contains religious icons, emoticons, numbers, zodiac sign symbols, hand signs, geometric signs, and more. It was released in 2002 by Monotype Imaging.
   
2. Xingy Ding font: This font was developed as an alternative to Wingdings by Robert Schenk and was released in 1995 by Ingrimayne Type font foundry. It includes symbols,pictures of communication , and icon, religion, zodiac signs, human hand, emotions, and more.
   
3. GG Dingbats font: This font was designed and released by Gerald Gallo and includes icons and pictures of flowers, clocks,  geometric shapes, numbers, arrows, and more.
   
4. PIXymbols Dingbats font: This font features symbols of copyright, e-mail, registration, trademark, and web. It was designed by Roger Vershen and released by Page Studio Graphics font foundry.
   

License Information

Wingdings is a font developed by Microsoft Corporation and is protected by copyright. In order to use Wingdings for commercial purposes or in a large-scale project, you must obtain a license from Microsoft.

There are different types of licenses available for Wingdings, including a desktop font license, digital ads license, web font license, mobile application license, and electronic publication license. Only personal usage is permitted with the free version of Wingdings; commercial use necessitates the purchase of a license. Please visit the Microsoft website to acquire a license.

Supported Languages 

This font is only supported in one language and that is English.  

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