Like ASCII, Unicode is a character set. However, Unicode is a very large character set, because Unicode is a superset of other character sets. Whereas ASCII contains 128 characters, Unicode 11.0 (June 2018) contains 137,439 characters covering 146 modern and historic scripts. Unicode can be implemented in different encodings, for example, UTF-8, UTF-16, etc. UTF-8 dominates the web. It is estimated that over 90% of websites use UTF-8. The first 128 Unicode code points are the ASCII characters.
Example
The Euro symbol (€) is code point 8364 in decimal notation. The following formula will return the Euro character: You can use UNICHAR to insert special characters into a formula, like a checkmark when a task is complete.
Reverse CHAR
The UNICODE function performs the opposite conversion, returning the code point for a given Unicode character.
Notes
If number is out-of-range, UNICHAR returns #VALUE! If number is not a recognized number, UNICHAR returns #VALUE!
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
