Unicode is an international standard that assigns every character in all of the world's writing systems a unique number, called a code point. It now lists nearly 160,000 characters, from Latin letters to Chinese ideograms, along with symbols and emojis.
Where to see it
Unicode can be read in codes written “U+” followed by digits, such as U+0041 for “A” or U+1F600 for the grinning face emoji, shown in the Glyphs panel or in special character input tools. It is thanks to Unicode that a text displays identically from one system, application or font to another.
Why this detail matters
Unicode is the invisible foundation that lets texts travel without getting garbled:
- Before it, each system used its own codes, and a text could display with the wrong characters when moved from one computer to another;
- It makes it possible to set type in every language with a single standard, and to mix several writing systems in the same document;
- For a font, being Unicode-encoded ensures that each glyph matches the right character, whatever software is used.
Related term
A character is the abstract unit of a text; it is the character that Unicode assigns a code point to, regardless of its design.