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If you've used an instant messenger or chat service, you've seen the ubiquitous smiley and frowning faces used to represent happy and sad. These symbols are called emoticons, a combination of the words "emotion" and "icon," and you can insert them to add a personal touch to most Office documents.

Note  In a purely unscientific poll of the Office Online team, we couldn't agree on what the third symbol meant. Different people thought that it was a sign either of indifference, frustration, or grumpiness. You be the judge. MSN® Messenger officially calls it disappointed, so we'll use that description for this article.

The following are some ways that you can insert emoticons, depending on which Office program you are using.

• Insert the emoticon symbol by using the Symbol command on the Insert menu.
• Insert the emoticon symbol by using the Microsoft Windows® Character Map tool.
• Type the keyboard shortcut for the symbol, and then change the symbol to the correct font.
• Use the Office AutoCorrect feature to translate the text of your choice into your chosen symbol.

Tip  Want even more emoticon graphics? Go to Clip Art and Media on Microsoft Office Online.

Insert a symbol by using the Symbol command

Note  This feature requires Excel, FrontPage, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Word, or Visio.

1. On the Insert menu, click Symbol.

   Note  In Outlook, use the Insert menu in the message window. This requires that you be using Word as your e-mail editor and that your message format be either RTF or HTML. You cannot use symbols with the Plain Text message format.

2. In the Symbol dialog box, on the Symbols tab, in the Font box, click Wingdings.
3. Scroll to where you will find the happy, sad, and disappointed emoticon symbols, and then double-click the symbol that you want.

Insert a symbol by using the Windows Character Map tool

Note  This feature requires Excel, FrontPage, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Word, or Visio.

1. Do one of the following:
   • For Microsoft Windows® XP, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Character Map.
   • For Microsoft Windows 2000, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Character Map.

   Note  If Character Map is not available, see Windows Help for information about how to install a Windows component.

2. In the Character Map dialog box, in the Font box, click Wingdings.
3. Scroll to where you will find the happy, sad, and disappointed emoticon symbols.
4. Click the emoticon symbol that you want, click Select, and then click Copy.
5. Switch to your document, and then place the insertion point where you want to paste the emoticon symbol.
6. Click Paste.

   Notes

   • If the symbol looks different from the one that you selected, select the symbol and then apply the same font that you selected in Character Map.
   • In Outlook, this requires that you either be using Word as your e-mail editor with a message format of RTF or HTML or, if you are not using Word as your editor, that messages be sent in the RTF message format. You cannot use symbols with the Plain Text message format.

Insert a symbol by using its character code

Note  This feature requires Excel, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Word, or Visio.

You can also use the character code of the symbol as a keyboard shortcut. For example, to insert the smiling emoticon symbol, press and hold ALT while typing 074 on the numeric keypad. The character that you see on your screen may not be what you were expecting. Highlight the character, and then change the font to Wingdings.

Note  You must use the numeric keypad and not the keyboard to type the numbers. Make sure that the NUM LOCK key is on if your keyboard requires it to type numbers on the numeric keypad.

Symbol	Character Code
	ALT+074
	ALT+075
	ALT+076

Insert a symbol by using AutoCorrect

Note  This feature requires Word 2002 or later. You can also use Outlook 2002 or later while using Word as your e-mail editor. When using Outlook, the Word version must match the Outlook version.

AutoCorrect already includes the three emoticon symbols in this article.

To use the emoticons, type the following:

Type this	Get this
:) or :-)
:| or :-|
:( or :-(