How to Use Wingdings Characters in Excel

Wingdings Characters are a symbolic font that a lot of us use for fun. I do that a lot too! But what if we wanted those cool symbols to be of good use in Excel?

Whenever I tried typing using the Wingdings font, I was not sure which symbol I would get!

I will show you how easy it is to pick cool Wingdings Characters and use them in your Excel worksheet!

Here is a sample usage of Wingdings characters for stock prices:

I explain how you can use Windings Characters in Excel below:

• Using Character Map
• Using Symbol Menu
• Using CHAR Function
• Using Alt Codes 

Let’s look at each one of these methods!

 

Using Character Map

Watch it on YouTube and give it a thumbs-up!

Follow the step-by-step tutorial below on How to use Wingdings Characters in Excel and download the Excel Workbook to move along with us:

STEP 1: Select the cells that you want to place the symbols in:

STEP 2: Go to Home Tab > Font dropdown > Select Wingdings.

STEP 3: Now that our cells are able to accept Wingdings characters, go to Windows Start (Windows 10) > Search Bar > Character Map

If you have an older version of Windows, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map

STEP 4: You will now see all the characters in the wingdings chart!  Ensure the Font is Wingdings.

Double click on the symbol you want to use. Click Copy.

STEP 5: Go to your Excel Spreadsheet and click Paste.

Do the rest for the other cells, and you have used Wingdings Symbols!

 

Using Symbol Menu

You can use the insert symbols option to use Windings characters in Excel.

STEP 1: Select the cells where you want to insert symbols.

STEP 2: Go to Insert Tab> Symbols dropdown > Select Symbol.

STEP 3: In the Symbols dialog box, select Windings from the font dropdown.

STEP 4: Select the arrow up symbol from the wingdings font chart and press Insert.

The arrow symbol will now be inserted in the cell.

STEP 5: Repeat the same steps for inserting the symbols in cell D7 and D8.

 

Using CHAR Function

In the previous method, you might have noticed that for every wingdings symbols there is a character code mentioned in the bottom right corner of the Symbol dialog box.

For example – The character code for the upwards arrow is 233.

You can use the CHAR Function in Excel to insert the character code and return the corresponding symbol.

CHAR function returns a character specified by a number from 1 to 255. For example, CHAR(254) returns a tick box (☑), CHAR(34) returns a ” (double quote), CHAR(233) returns ↑(arrow upwards), etc.

In the example below, there is a list of Order IDs and you want to add a tick box for the orders that have been dispatched.

Let’s use this CHAR function to insert a tick box in Excel!

STEP 1: Select the cell where you want to insert a tick box.

STEP 2: Enter the CHAR Function.

=CHAR(

STEP 3: Enter the character code of the tick box and press Enter.

STEP 4: Go to Home > Font Dropdown > Select Wingdings.

This will insert the tick box symbol in the selected cell!

STEP 5: Copy-paste the formula in the cells where you want a tick box.

 

Using Alt Codes

An easier way to insert character in Excel is to use the Alt button in a combination with the character code.

STEP 1: Select the cell where you want to insert a symbol.

STEP 2: Go to Home > Font Dropdown > Select Wingdings.

STEP 3: Press and hold the Alt button and then type the character code (0254) on your keypad.

This is how you can easily use the Alt button to insert windings characters in Excel. But, you need to keep the following points in mind while using this method:

• You have to add a leading zero in front of the character code i.e. you need to type 0254, not 254.
• You need to use the numerical keypad, not the numbers at the top of the keyboard.

 

Conclusion

To insert Wingdings Characters in Excel, you can use the character map, the symbol menu, the CHAR function, or the ALT button.

Either of these methods will get the job done for you!

Further Learning:

• Create Custom Symbols in Excel based on Numbers
• Add a Degree Symbol to Selection Using Macros In Excel
• Top 3 Methods to Find Special Characters in Excel

Make sure to download our FREE PDF on the 333 Excel keyboard Shortcuts here: