How to use an emoji font on a website?

Question

I\'ve downloaded Google\'s \"Noto Color Emoji\" font, but can\'t get it to work. I have no problems with fonts like \"Noto Sans Regular\". But with the \"Noto Color Emoji\" font

Answer 1

Color fonts are quite new with several competing standards which are still evolving and being implemented in common text libs (Opentype 1.8 has just been released with another color twist).

They are unlikely to work today except in the very latest preview browsers, and even then the level of support is likely to vary and depend on the underlying system, since browsers do use the system text libs (with various levels of overrides).

Older software will just not recognize the Opentype extensions added to make those fonts possible.

Lastly, Noto Color Emoji is pretty much a prototype, it is likely early versions are not quite conformant to what has been standardised later, and even if they are, the way the color font standards are used is still likely to evolve as font producers and font consumers gain maturity on the subject.

Answer 2

Color fonts are coming but you will need to either:

• Implement all color formats in one font (4 in total!) -> I don't know if somebody did it but the font would be huge, and it looks really complicated and not recommended.
• Make one font for each format and load it conditionally. -> Not recommended as some formats are bitmap based and not vectors & fonts can be huge (+20Mo).
• Wait for the OpenType SVG format support on all platforms.
• Do it in javascript like
  • Twemoji "A simple library that provides standard Unicode emoji support across all platforms."
  • EmojiOne "EmojiOne™ is the open emoji standard."

The latest solution looks the best one for now for a web usage!

Answer 3

I use font-family:'Segoe UI Emoji' Works on Chrome, Firefox, IE11, Mac Safari, and mobile Safari. Mostly all emojis work, including ones that don't have any colors on normal fonts, such as the mountain, speech bubble, paintbrush.

Does not work on Android :(