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Variation Selectors (Unicode block)

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See also: Variation Selectors Supplement (Unicode block)
Variation Selectors
RangeU+FE00..U+FE0F
(16 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsInherited
Assigned16 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
3.2 (2002)16 (+16)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

Variation Selectors is a Unicode block containing 16 variation selectors used to specify a glyph variant for a preceding character. They are currently used to specify standardized variation sequences for mathematical symbols, emoji symbols, 'Phags-pa letters, and CJK unified ideographs corresponding to CJK compatibility ideographs. At present only standardized variation sequences with VS1–VS4, VS7, VS15 and VS16 have been defined; VS15 and VS16 are reserved to request that a character should be displayed as text or as an emoji respectively.[3][4]

These combining characters are named variation selector-1 (for U+FE00) through to variation selector-16 (U+FE0F), and are abbreviated VS1 – VS16. Each applies to the immediately preceding character.

As of Unicode 17.0:[5]

  • CJK compatibility ideograph variation sequences contain VS1–VS3 (U+FE00–U+FE02)
  • CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A and B variation sequences contain VS1 (U+FE00) and VS2 (U+FE01)
  • Emoji variation sequences contain VS16 (U+FE0F) for emoji-style (with color) or VS15 (U+FE0E) for text style (monochrome). This use is deprecated; newer emoji versions of existing dingbat characters have a separate code point for the emoji form, such as U+1FAAF 🪯 KHANDA whose dingbat form is U+262C ☬ ADI SHAKTI.[6][7][8]
  • Basic Latin, Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms, Manichaean, Myanmar, Myanmar Extended-A, Phags-pa, and mathematical variation sequences contain only VS1 (U+FE00)
  • Egyptian Hieroglyphs variation sequences VS1–VS7 (U+FE00–FE06) are used to rotate specific signs
  • VS8–VS14 (U+FE07–FE0D) are not used for any variation sequences
Variation Selectors[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+FE0x  VS 
1 		 VS 
2 		 VS 
3 		 VS 
4 		 VS 
5 		 VS 
6 		 VS 
7 		 VS 
8 		 VS 
9 		 VS 
10 		 VS 
11 		 VS 
12 		 VS 
13 		 VS 
14 		 VS 
15 		 VS 
16
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0

This list is continued in the Variation Selectors Supplement.

See also

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Variation Selectors block:

Version Final code points[a] Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document
3.2 U+FE00..FE0F 16 L2/97-260 Hiura, Hideki; Kobayashi, Tatsuo (1997-12-01), Plane 14 Variant Tag
L2/98-039 Aliprand, Joan; Winkler, Arnold (1998-02-24), "2.D.4 Variant Tag Mechanism", Preliminary Minutes - UTC #74 & L2 #171, Mountain View, CA - December 5, 1997
L2/98-277 Hiura, Hideki; Kobayashi, Tatsuo (1998-07-29), Plane 14 Variant tag
L2/98-281R (pdf, html) Aliprand, Joan (1998-07-31), "III.E.3 Variant Tagging (III.E.3)", Unconfirmed Minutes – UTC #77 & NCITS Subgroup L2 # 174 JOINT MEETING, Redmond, WA -- July 29-31, 1998
L2/00-187 Moore, Lisa (2000-08-23), "Variation Selector", UTC minutes -- Boston, August 8-11, 2000
L2/01-268 Freytag, Asmus (2001-06-27), Variant selector
L2/01-309 Jenkins, John (2001-08-08), Variation selectors and Han
L2/01-324R Davis, Mark (2001-08-17), Variation Selectors [document has incorrect L2 ID number]
L2/01-295R Moore, Lisa (2001-11-06), "88-M5", Minutes from the UTC/L2 meeting #88
L2/02-154 N2403 Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2002-04-22), "7.12", Draft minutes of WG 2 meeting 41, Hotel Phoenix, Singapore, 2001-10-15/19
L2/17-086 Burge, Jeremy; et al. (2017-03-27), Add ZWJ, VS-16, Keycaps & Tags to Emoji_Component
L2/17-103 Moore, Lisa (2017-05-18), "E.1.7 Add ZWJ, VS-16, Keycaps & Tags to Emoji_Component", UTC #151 Minutes
  1. ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

References

  1. ^ "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. ^ "StandardizedVariants.txt". Unicode Consortium. 2015-11-20. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  4. ^ "Emoji Variation Sequences". Unicode Consortium. 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  5. ^ "UCD: Standardized Variation Sequences". Unicode Consortium.
  6. ^ Ewell, Doug (2022-09-26). "Process of transforming existing glyphs to emojis via variants". Unicode Mailing List Archives. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  7. ^ Bettencourt, Rebecca; Ewell, Doug. "Proposal to disunify Symbols for Legacy Computing from emoji" (PDF). UTC L2/23-252. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-05-26. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
  8. ^ Holbrook, Ned (2022-04-14). "Emoji Subcommittee Repo for UTC #171 (2022Q2)" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. p. 2. UTC L2/22-066. Retrieved 2025-10-11.
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