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󠅏

variation selector-96

Variation Selector-96

Variation Selector-96 is invisible control data that can request a particular written form after an ideograph—a Chinese-character-based sign used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text. The sequence system preserves exact forms in names, places, publishing, and records. Alone, or after a base with no registered pair, it produces no visible change.

Text symbol

Also called: VS96 · ideographic variation selector · CJK variation selector
Search it as: ivs · ideographic selector · cjk selector · glyph variant · kanji variant · invisible character · font variant
Shows up in: Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws

What 󠅏 means

It has no standalone meaning; it modifies a preceding ideograph.

An ideographic variation sequence (IVS) is a base character followed by a selector; its registered record specifies the requested glyph form. The number 96 does not name a shape by itself. In the IVD release dated 2026-08-03, no registered sequence uses E014F, so VS96 is not a general-purpose font-styling switch.

The need came before this character: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean publishing and record systems sometimes had to preserve exact written forms of personal names, place names, printed works, and historical records. Unicode added this supplementary selector range in 2003. The Ideographic Variation Database (IVD), a registry for these sequences, first included Adobe-Japan1, a Japanese publishing glyph collection, on 2007-12-14. Moji_Joho/Hanyo-Denshi covers administrative forms of names and places. These collections show why the selector and base character must be treated as one unit.

Technical data, not a conversational symbol; use it only as part of a base-plus-selector sequence.

Do not send VS96 by itself; without its base character, it cannot identify a visible variant.

Don't confuse it with

️

VS16 requests emoji presentation in defined emoji sequences. VS96 belongs to ideographic variation sequences; it is not an emoji-presentation selector.

Questions people ask

Why is VS96 not showing?

That is expected: VS96 has no visible shape of its own. If software does not support the base-plus-selector sequence, it leaves the base character as usual and ignores the selector.

How to type 󠅏

Windows (Word)

Alt+XType E014F, then Alt+X to get 󠅏.

Windows

Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).

macOS

Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “variation selector-96”.

Linux

Ctrl+Shift+UType e014f, then Enter or Space.

HTML

󠅏

CSS

\E014F

Source text

To insert VS96, place U+E014F immediately after the intended base ideograph; alone, it has no visible result.

CJK input method

For a registered IVS, choose the variant attached to the base character; support depends on the input method and font.

Codes and encoding1 code points

HTML decimal

󠅏

HTML hex

󠅏

CSS content

content: "\E014F";

Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.

URL encoded

%F3%A0%85%8F

On screen

Code points

JS .length

UTF-8 bytes

A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.

Families this belongs to

Accents & marks659 symbols

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