Variation Selectors (Unicode block): Difference between revisions

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'''Variation Selectors''' is a [[Unicode block]] containing 16 variation selectors used to specify a [[Variant form (Unicode)|glyph variant]] for a preceding character. They are currently used to specify standardized variation sequences for mathematical symbols, [[emoji]] symbols, [['Phags-pa script|'Phags-pa]] letters, and CJK unified ideographs corresponding to [[CJK compatibility ideographs]]. At present only standardized variation sequences with VS1VS1–VS4, VS2, VS3VS7, VS15 and VS16 have been defined; <abbr title="text">VS15</abbr> and <abbr title="emoji">VS16</abbr> are reserved to request that a character should be displayed as text or as an [[emoji]] respectively.<ref>{{Cite web | title=StandardizedVariants.txt | url=https://www.unicode.org/Public/UCD/latest/ucd/StandardizedVariants.txt | publisher=Unicode Consortium | date=2015-11-20 | access-date=2016-08-28 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | title=Emoji Variation Sequences | url=http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/#Emoji_Variation_Sequences | publisher=Unicode Consortium | date=2020-09-18 | access-date=2020-11-18 }}</ref>

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 13.0:<ref name="UniStdVarTxt">{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/StandardizedVariants.txt|title=UCD: Standardized Variation Sequences|publisher=Unicode Consortium }}</ref>

* [[CJK Compatibility Ideographs|CJK compatibility ideograph]] variation sequences contain VS1&ndash;VS3VS1–VS3 (U+FE00&ndash;UFE00–U+FE02)

* [[CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A]] and [[CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B|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)

* [[Basic Latin (Unicode block)|Basic Latin]], [[Halfwidth and fullwidth forms|Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms]], [[Manichaean (Unicode block)|Manichaean]], [[Myanmar (Unicode block)|Myanmar]], [[Myanmar Extended-A]], [[Phags-pa (Unicode block)|Phags-pa]], and mathematical variation sequences contain only VS1 (U+FE00)

* [[Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Unicode block)#Standardized variants|Egyptian Hieroglyphs]] variation sequences VS1–VS4 and VS7 (U+FE00–FE03, and FE06) are used to rotate specific signs

* VS4&ndash;VS14VS5, VS6, and VS8–VS14 (U+FE03&ndash;U+FE0DFE04, FE05, and FE07–FE0D) are not used for any variation sequences

{{Unicode chart Variation Selectors}}