fontswindows 10
I'd like to replace Microsoft's Segoe UI Symbol emoji globally with Noto Color Emoji's (since it has country flags and, more importantly, I think they're adorable). Unfortunately, Windows tells me it's not a valid font file.
Microsoft has finally added Emoji (2, at least) to the Segoe UI symbol font in an update to Windows 7.
Microsoft KB2729094 titled “An update for the Segoe UI symbol font in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 is available” is presumed to be made available through Windows Update soon.
This article introduces an update to the Segoe UI symbol font in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2. This update adds support for emoji characters and some control glyphs that are included in Windows 8 and in Windows Server 2012. Note Emoji characters come from emoji-capable platforms and devices. The platforms or devices enable users to easily insert emoji characters into documents, email messages, or chat conversations by using an emoji picker feature or an emoji palette feature. In Windows 8 or in Windows Server 2012, these characters are inserted by using the on-screen keyboard.
Microsoft backports Windows 8 emoji for Segoe UI Symbol to Windows 7
You can get the same on screen keyboard as for touch screen devices by doing: Win + R to bring up the Run dialog, and type tabtip.
This will then type into the current application ?
Best Answer
Well, it's not like Microsoft deliberately disabled the support of Noto Emoji. More simply it just outright does not support the format that Noto uses.
While almost all fonts you deal with are OpenType-based, there are several different colour-font extensions to OpenType – Segoe UI Emoji uses Microsoft's own format (layered vector drawings in COLR/CPAL), while Noto Emoji Color uses Google's own (bitmap images in CBDT/CBLC). There's also Adobe's "SVG " and Apple's "sbix" format.
Noto is originally drawn in SVG format, so it includes Adobe's "SVG " table alongside Google's bitmaps, because that's simple enough. But the Microsoft layered format is quite different, so I'm not sure if automatic conversion would be easy or even possible.
See also issue #43 "NotoColorEmoji.ttf not a valid font in Windows" on GitHub for a more detailed explanation.
A while ago, there used to be an "Adobe Type Manager" adding support for Type-1 fonts, back when Windows only supported TrueType. But I haven't heard of anything that would add support for different kinds of emoji fonts...
Maybe you'll like the new Segoe Emoji that Build 14316 brings?
Update: Microsoft says that the 2016 "Anniversary" update finally supports all the above formats.