It’s been a few weeks since a post, so I thought I would celebrate the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice with some snowflake symbols from the Unicode list.
| Character Name | Character | Hex Entity Code | Decimal Entity Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNOWFLAKE | ❄ | &x2744; | ❄ |
| TIGHT TRIFOLIATE SNOWFLAKE | ❅ | &x2745; | ❅ |
| HEAVY CHEVRON SNOWFLAKE | ❆ | &x2746; | ❆ |
Why the Snowflake Symbols?
I am stumped on this one. These symbols come from the “Dingbats” block of Unicode which normally includes other ‘images’ like the pointy finger and the leaf bullet. I had thought that these snowflakes may represent some meteorological concept, but I’m not finding any references to them. Doesn’t mean one won’t turn up in the future though.
Snowflake Font support
You usually need a font with a large set of math symbols to also get the extra “science” symbols. Some good bets are:
- Arial Univode MS (bundled with Windows)
- Apple Symbol, Hiragino Mincho Pro W3 (Japanese), Hiragino Mincho Pro W6 (Japanese ), Lucida Sans (bundled with Mac OS X)
- Unicode Symbols
- Hindsight Unicode
- CERG Chinese Font
- Chrysanthi (Chryʃsanþi)
If you actually want to enter these symbols into a document, then your best bet is usually the Windows Character Map, the Macintosh Character Palette or the Macintosh Unicode Hex Input Keyboard.
