Which Unicode version added emoji sourced from Wingdings and Webdings?

Which Unicode version added emoji sourced from Wingdings and Webdings? The answer is Unicode 7.0.

Unicode 7.0, released in June 2014, incorporated many pictographic symbols originating in the Wingdings and Webdings typefaces. Their addition contributed roughly 250 characters that could be used as emoji, expanding the range of transport, weather, gestures, objects, and other pictographs available in Unicode.

Wingdings and Webdings were proprietary symbol fonts rather than emoji standards. They mapped ordinary keyboard positions to pictures, so the same keystroke could display a symbol only when a particular font was installed. Unicode 7.0 encoded many of those underlying symbols as standardized characters that could be exchanged across systems.

Not every glyph was copied unchanged, and some symbols were unified with characters already present in Unicode. The addition also did not mean that every platform immediately rendered the characters as colorful emoji; emoji presentation depends on fonts, variation selectors, and software support. Unicode 7.0 is the release associated with this major Wingdings/Webdings-derived expansion.