Wingdings Translator
Wingdings are a series of dingbat fonts which render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Wingdings Translator translates the English letters into Wingdings symbols.
Enter some text and click Translate to see the result
What Are Wingdings?
Wingdings is a series of symbol fonts developed by Microsoft in 1990, in which the standard Latin alphabet characters are replaced by an assortment of symbols, icons, and pictograms. Instead of rendering the letter "A", Wingdings renders a hand pointing left; instead of "B", a hand pointing right; instead of "C", a pointing index finger. The full Wingdings character set includes symbols representing hands, arrows, stars, geometric shapes, religious icons, office objects, and various decorative elements.
The font was created by combining three existing symbol sets licensed from type designers Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes — specifically glyphs from Lucida Icons, Lucida Arrows, and Lucida Stars. Microsoft bundled Wingdings with Windows 3.1 in 1992, and it has shipped with every version of Windows since. For many people who grew up in the 1990s, Wingdings is one of their earliest encounters with the concept of a symbol font.
The NYC Conspiracy — Wingdings and September 11
Wingdings became the subject of one of the earliest major internet conspiracy theories in 1992, immediately after Windows 3.1's release. Users discovered that typing "NYC" in Wingdings produced a skull, a Star of David, and a thumbs-up symbol — which some interpreted as an anti-Semitic message hidden in the font by Microsoft. The company strongly denied any intentional message and pointed out that the character assignments were essentially arbitrary, derived from the order of the source glyph sets.
A second Wingdings controversy emerged after September 11, 2001, when people noticed that "Q33 NY" (a supposed flight number, though not actually matching any of the hijacked flights) typed in Wingdings produced an aeroplane, two buildings, a skull, and a Star of David. The combination was striking, though entirely coincidental. Both episodes illustrate how humans find meaningful patterns in random data — and how quickly such observations spread as conspiracy theories. Microsoft released Webdings as a companion font in 1997, continuing the symbol-font tradition.
Wingdings Symbol Examples
Some Wingdings character mappings that have become particularly well-known:
| Character | Wingdings Symbol |
|---|---|
| J | ☺ Smiley face (commonly used in early Windows emails) |
| L | ☹ Sad face |
| K | 😐 Neutral face |
| ! | ✏ Pencil |
| @ | ✂ Scissors |
| $ | ✆ Telephone |
| P | ✌ Peace / victory hand |
| * | ❖ Diamond |
Wingdings in the Internet Age
Wingdings gained a second life on the internet as a source of visual curiosity, nostalgia, and memes. Typing a message in Wingdings and sharing it as a "secret" message became a playground staple in the early days of the internet. The "Wingdings translator" became one of the first popular novelty web tools — people would type messages in Wingdings and share them as puzzles for friends to decode.
One particular Wingdings character achieved significant internet fame: the letter "J" in Wingdings renders as a smiley face ☺. Because early Microsoft Outlook and Word automatically converted :-) emoticons into a "J" character formatted in Wingdings font — and because this "J" was not always visible to recipients using non-Microsoft email clients — countless emails were sent containing inexplicable lone "J" characters at the end of sentences. This quirk of Microsoft's autocorrect became one of the most discussed email mysteries of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
How This Wingdings Translator Works
This Wingdings translator converts your English text into the corresponding Wingdings symbol characters — each letter replaced by its Wingdings equivalent icon. Enter any word or phrase and see it rendered in Microsoft's famous symbol font.
Perfect for nostalgia fans of 90s computing, puzzle makers, those hunting for hidden conspiracy messages, or anyone who simply wants to send a message that only someone with a Wingdings chart can decode.
