I am using Excel 16.46 on macOS Catalina 10.15.7 and here is what I am experiencing.
Using macOS's character viewer — command+control+space — I've entered the “ballot box with check” Unicode character (
☑︎
) into an Excel cell. I getaa
; when I do it again, I get two blank squares instead of the intended symbol.When I click away — deactivating the cell — the two squares becomes the “Man in Tuxedo” emoji:
🤵🏻
If I reeenter the cell, I see the checkmark and an additional box.
What is going? Why does the checkbox become “Man in a Tuxedo” Emoji?
Update I tested other characters. I found
- other odd pairings and
- it doesn't happen if the Combining Enclosed Square is included in the cell
I randomly entered unicode characters:
☐└◻︎⃞■□▩✓√▫️▧☒⏍▣⥟➢➡︎☞➨➬➸⤅⤏⤁⤀☜⤃☒▫︎‣▷▶︎❄︎❀✸✡︎✭✾✔︎❍▷▼✂︎☑︎☕︎✌︎✍︎☄︎⚲⚢⚣⚤⚯⚮⚭⚬⚩
and everything rendered correctly (or as an empty box). If I deleted the Combining Enclosed Square, it did not, and many other unrelated emojis emerged:
☑︎
in Apple Symbols, but not in any other default fonts – it seems if the font doesn't have the character defined, Office replaces the unicode with the emoji. And for some reason, it links the ballot box unicode with 🤵🏻. So strange!