Variation Selectors (Unicode block)
Variation Selectors is a Unicode block containing 16 Variation Selector format. They are used to specify a specific glyph variant for a preceding character. They are currently used to specify standardized variation sequences for mathematical symbols, emoji symbols, 'Phags-pa letters, and CJK unified ideographs corresponding to CJK compatibility ideographs. At present only standardized variation sequences with VS1, VS2, VS3, VS15 and VS16 have been defined; VS15 and VS16 are reserved to determine whether or not a character should be displayed as an emoji.
These combining characters are named variation selector-1 through to variation selector-16, and are abbreviated VS1 – VS16. Each applies to the immediately preceding character.
As of Unicode 11.0:
This list is continued in the Variation Selectors Supplement.History
The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Variation Selectors block:
