How to type emoji and special characters anywhere
Emoji, arrows, maths symbols and accented letters are everywhere, but typing the exact one you want can be fiddly. Understanding how they work makes it easy to find and use any character on any device. Here is a quick guide.
Emoji and special characters are just text
Every emoji and symbol is a character in Unicode, the standard that assigns a number to every letter, sign and emoji. Because they are text, you can copy and paste them anywhere — documents, messages, social posts, even file names. There is nothing to install; the character travels with the text.
Why they look different across devices
The same emoji can look different on iPhone, Android and Windows because each platform draws its own version of the Unicode character. The meaning stays the same, only the artwork changes. Very new emoji may not appear on older devices yet, showing a box instead, so for wide compatibility stick to well-established ones.
The easiest way to get the one you want
Rather than hunting through a system keyboard, search by name in a picker and click to copy — far faster for kaomoji, arrows, currency or maths symbols. Keep a list of the ones you use often. Special characters paste as plain text, so they work in almost any app without formatting issues.
Try it: search and copy emoji, kaomoji and symbols with EmojiBloom →