How to put a unicode character in XAML?

Question

I'm trying to do this:

<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Text, 
                          Converter={StaticResource stringFormatConverter}, 
                          ConverterParameter='&\u2014{0}'}" />

To get a — to appear in front of the text. It doesn't work. What should I be doing here?

score 233 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '09 at 12:15

233

Since XAML is an XML file format you could try the XML character escape. So instead of writing &\u2014, you could write — instead.

answered Sep 02 '09 at 12:15

ferdley

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thank you. I tried — and \u2014, but not that. It worked. – Alex Baranosky Sep 02 '09 at 12:19
4

You were close, in hexa € and in decimal unicode € you'll get and Euro :) – user347594 Jun 04 '10 at 04:08
Yes, but what if you want a UTF-32 character, like the musical notes in the Symbola font which are above 0x10000? – Ruud van Gaal Jan 29 '18 at 19:38
Thanks for the hint. However this only worked for me when I put my unicode character directly inside Text="...". When using a Binding with my ViewModel I had to use a string variable containing "\u2014". – flocbit Aug 07 '18 at 09:10
1

@RuudvanGaal: see my [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/73924909/147511) below for the simple **UTF-32** syntax in **XAML**... – Glenn Slayden Oct 02 '22 at 09:58
1

Note the trailing `;` – Franky Jan 10 '23 at 11:44

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered May 24 '13 at 10:09

In xaml I did it like this:

    <Button Grid.Column="1" Grid.RowSpan="2" Name="start" Margin="5" Click="start_Click">
        <TextBlock Name="test" FontFamily="pack://application:,,,/Y_Yoga;Component/Resources/#FontAwesome">&#xF04B;</TextBlock>
    </Button>

Hope to be helpful!

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 26 '19 at 17:10

I came to this page for some other reason, but this does not include the easiest and the obvious solution.

This is what I do.

Maintain a static class with all the Unicode values.

 public static class Icons
{
    public const string IconName = "\u2014";
}

And then just bind it wherever you need it.

<TextBlock Text="{x:Static resources:Icons.IconName}" FontFamily="..."/>

This also helps you out with maintenance, all icons would be in one place to manage.

Matas Vaitkevicius · Answer 4 · 2016-03-25T11:35:42.563

From Microsoft documentation:

Markup files that are created in Microsoft Visual Studio are automatically saved in the Unicode UTF-8 file format, which means that most special characters, such as accent marks, are encoded correctly. However, there is a set of commonly-used special characters that are handled differently. These special characters follow the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML standard for encoding.

What this means is that you can do zalgo for all you care

Bit of code that is relevant:

<Label Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="3" FontWeight="ExtraBlack">STAGE:M&#x363;&#x36d;&#x363;&#x33e;  V&#x363;&#x365;&#x36d;&#x35b;&#x364;&#x36e;&#x365;&#x368;&#x365;&#x367;&#x33e;</Label>

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 16 '18 at 11:40

1

Save the file as UTF-8. In Visual Studio, you can do this by going "File" → "Advanced Save Options".

answered Oct 16 '18 at 11:40

Akku

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Glenn Slayden · Answer 6 · 2022-10-19T07:14:53.617

0

The UTF-32 syntax in WPF/XAML is like so: &#x000F1B0A;

<TextBlock Text="foo &#x000F1B0A; bar"
           FontFamily="Material Design Icons" />

This example is using the Material Design Icons desktop font (glyph dump here)

edited Oct 19 '22 at 07:14

answered Oct 02 '22 at 09:55

Glenn Slayden

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How to put a unicode character in XAML?

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