Wingdings: Why does the font exist?

Wingdings is a font that was developed by Microsoft in 1990 and can still be found in all Microsoft applications today. Why the font, which consists only of symbols, exists and how to use it, you will learn everything you need to know here.

Wingdings: How the font was created

The Wingdings font was developed by Microsoft and is based on the three Lucida fonts Lucida Icons, Lucida Arrows and Lucida Stars. These were developed and also licensed in 1990 by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Since Lucida Icons, Lucida Arrows, and Lucida Stars are composed entirely of symbols, they were intended only as a complement to the Lucida font to allow designers to add symbols and images to their text.Microsoft bought the Lucida fonts from their inventors shortly after they were released and used the most popular symbols from the three fonts to develop Wingdings.

Fonts: How to use Wingdings

Still today, Wingdings is part of all Microsoft programs and can be used for text creation in Word, among other things.

1. To get an overview of which Wingdings characters are usable in Word, click on "Insert" in the menu bar, go to "Symbols" > "More Symbols" to open the character table and then select "Wingdings" from the list of fonts.
2. Um ein Wingdings-Symbol in Ihren Text einzufügen, wählen Sie dieses mit der Maustaste aus und klicken Sie bitte auf die Schaltfläche „Einfügen“.
3. Zeitgleich mit Wingdings wurde mit Webdings eine weitere Schriftart von Microsoft entwickelt, die auf HTML basiert und zur Einfügung von Symbolen auf Webseiten genutzt werden kann.