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Context: I'm on a Mac and use Airmail as my email desktop client

Whenever I receive emails where people have typed a smiley face, it shows up as the letter J. So :) becomes J.

I read this could be because the sender is using Outlook and the font Wingdings and that I should setup my mail app to replace the smiley face emoticon :) with an emoji.

Is this really what's happening, and is that the only/best solution?

Excellll
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bzle
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2 Answers2

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What you read is correct. When you type :) in Outlook, the :) is removed and replaced with 0x4A Wingdings font, which gets converted to HTML markup in the email.

This maps to exactly "J" in common alphabet fonts, and so that is what you see if your email client does not follow the font face directive in the email (most other than Outlook) and/or you don't have wingdings installed.

Your best option is to just mentally map a solo 'J` to a smiley face.

Paul
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    Yet another example of Microsoft thinking everybody uses Microsoft :/ – Tetsujin Feb 22 '17 at 08:06
  • Thanks for the answer Paul. You're saying there really is no solution to this? Could 0x4A (or whatever the converted HTML is) be mapped to an emoji? – bzle Feb 22 '17 at 16:38
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    Great answer. I always knew it was because Outlook doesn't support emojis, but I never really understood why the letter 'J'. Now that I know, I'm standing beside myself wondering how Microsoft doesn't even think twice about "autocorrecting" a common symbol with a single character from their own proprietary font that's only available to Windows users. It's as if Microsoft invented this newfangled email thing that's so popular with the kids these days. – Wes Sayeed Feb 23 '17 at 00:07
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    @bzle One option is to get everyone you know to disable the autocorrect rule in outlook (https://superuser.com/questions/134409/smileys-in-outlook-how-to-prevent-it). This would be hard. Alternatively, if you email supports it you could convert a solo `J` into `:)` – Paul Feb 23 '17 at 03:59
  • @Paul Thanks for the suggestion. The last email I got with the J, it wasn't even solo as there was no space between it and the word before it. I did find out that the html looks like this: `J` I've put in a ticket with Airmail... I don't think there's a way to auto replace this, but it sure would be awesome. I'm getting the sense that there's no solution to this. You just have to deal with the J Paul, thanks for your responses. I'll be marking yours as the answer if no other solution comes up. – bzle Feb 25 '17 at 18:24
  • @Paul I just had a crazy idea... what if a font called Wingdings was created with just a couple emoji specifically to address this problem? Sure it wouldn't be the official Wingdings font, but might that be possible and solve this problem? Now I have to research how to make your own font. – bzle Feb 25 '17 at 18:27
  • @Paul I've actually made the J show up as a smiley face! Mac's already have a Wingdings font (apparently) but you can't type with it. I removed the font, opened and re-saved with FontForge (smiley was already mapped to J). Converted .sfd to .ttf online. Added the font back to my user via Font Book. Boom, the smiley shows up! Might have trashed some of the original functionality for using Wingdings as glyphs, but I didn't use that anyway. So help me out here: Do I except your answer as the correct answer and then edit to include my solution? What's the proper way to do this? – bzle Feb 25 '17 at 19:33
  • @bzle Wow, great work. The proper way is to write your own answer, and then accept it. Please be detailed in your answer about the steps - consider a novice. This will be a great addition to the site. – Paul Feb 26 '17 at 11:34
  • @Paul Got it, will do. Thanks for your help! – bzle Feb 28 '17 at 04:07
  • +1 for *Your best option is to just mentally map a solo 'J` to a smiley face.* I'm tired of fixing computer problems with computers. :) – I say Reinstate Monica Apr 17 '17 at 02:00
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Found a solution to this:

Macs already have a Wingdings font, but it's not set up for typing... it appears to just be available for use as glyphs.

I've taken my Wingdings font and re-saved it using Font Forge. This way the key mapping actually works (Though I'm not sure what functionality is lost by doing this).

Here's how to get setup:

  1. In Finder, go to: Macintosh HD/Library/Fonts
  2. Find Wingdings.ttf, right click to open "Get Info"
    1. Scroll down to "Sharing & Permissions:"
    2. Click the lock icon in the bottom right to unlock.
    3. Give user "everyone" "Read & Write" permissions
  3. Close "Get Info" and move Wingdings.ttf to a different folder. I would have preferred simply renaming the font, but it wouldn't let me.
  4. Download my re-saved font: https://github.com/bzle/J-to-Smiley-Fix/raw/master/Wingdings.ttf
  5. You may be able to add this font where the old one was removed from... I added this as a user font via Font Book. It gave an error saying it would be a duplicate font, but you can just check the box and add anyway.

At this point I restarted Airmail (not sure if that was necessary), and now the J is a smiley!

Excellll
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bzle
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  • Hey, you might want to check the licensing for Wingdings before uploading and linking it from here. – Paul Feb 28 '17 at 05:21
  • @Paul Thanks, that's a good point. I've updated the font so all Wingdings imagery is wiped and three custom faces have been added. That should take care of any licensing concerns. – bzle Mar 09 '17 at 22:32