Editing Chess symbols in Unicode

{{short description|Text characters representing chess pieces}}
{{Use American English|date=August 2024}}
{{For|the Unicode block with heterodox chess symbols|Chess Symbols}}
{{SpecialChars}}
[[File:Chess symbols.svg|thumb|alt=Refer to caption|Font depictions of Unicode chess symbols (in the same order as the table): [[DejaVu fonts|DejaVu Sans]], [[GNU FreeFont|FreeSerif]], Quivira, Pecita.]]
[[File:GNU Chess on macOS.png|thumb|alt=A screenshot of the GNU Chess program in graphic mode showing the chessboard with Unicode characters.|[[GNU Chess]] using Unicode chess characters to display a chess board in the terminal.]]

[[Unicode]] has text representations of [[chess piece]]s. These allow to produce the symbols using [[plain text]] without the need of a graphics interface. The inclusion of the chess symbols enables the use of [[Long algebraic notation|figurine algebraic notation]], which replaces the letter that stands for a piece by its symbol, e.g. ♘c6 instead of Nc6. This also allows the play of chess games in text-only environments, such as the [[Computer terminal|terminal]].

==Unicode blocks==
Unicode 15.1 specifies a total of 110 spread across two blocks. The standard set of chess pieces—[[King (chess)|king]], [[Queen (chess)|queen]], [[Rook (chess)|rook]], [[Bishop (chess)|bishop]], [[Knight (chess)|knight]], or [[Pawn (chess)|pawn]], with [[White and Black in chess|white and black]] variants—were included in the block [[Miscellaneous Symbols]]. In Unicode 12.0, the [[Chess Symbols (Unicode block)|Chess Symbols]] block (U+1FA00–U+1FA6F) was allocated for inclusion of extra chess piece representations. This includes [[fairy chess pieces]], such as rotated pieces, neutral (neither white nor black) pieces, knighted pieces, equihoppers, as well as [[xiangqi]] pieces.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1FA00.pdf |title=Chess Symbols |website=unicode.org |publisher=Unicode Consortium |access-date=21 August 2023}}</ref>

In 2024, four [[shatranj]] pieces have been provisionally assigned for a future version in the range U+1FA54–U+1FA57.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2024/24020-shatranj-symbols.pdf |title=Unicode request for ''shatranj'' symbols |last1=Bala |first1=Gavin Jared |last2=Miller |first2=Kirk |date=22 December 2023 |website=unicode.org |publisher=Unicode Consortium |access-date=4 February 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html |title=Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline |author=Unicode |date= |website=unicode.org |access-date=4 February 2024}}</ref>

===Miscellaneous symbols===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ '''Chess Symbols'''<br />{{nobold|1=[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf Unicode.org chart] (PDF)}}
|-
! Name !! Symbol !! Code point !! HTML (decimal) !! HTML (hex)
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[king (chess)|chess king]]}}     || {{huge|&#9812;}} || U+2654 || &amp;#9812; || &amp;#x2654;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[queen (chess)|chess queen]]}}   || {{huge|&#9813;}} || U+2655 || &amp;#9813; || &amp;#x2655;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[rook (chess)|chess rook]]}}     || {{huge|&#9814;}} || U+2656 || &amp;#9814; || &amp;#x2656;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[bishop (chess)|chess bishop]]}} || {{huge|&#9815;}} || U+2657 || &amp;#9815; || &amp;#x2657;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[knight (chess)|chess knight]]}} || {{huge|&#9816;}} || U+2658 || &amp;#9816; || &amp;#x2658;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|white [[pawn (chess)|chess pawn]]}}     || {{huge|&#9817;}} || U+2659 || &amp;#9817; || &amp;#x2659;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess king}}                      || {{huge|&#9818;}} || U+265A || &amp;#9818; || &amp;#x265A;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess queen}}                     || {{huge|&#9819;}} || U+265B || &amp;#9819; || &amp;#x265B;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess rook}}                      || {{huge|&#9820;}} || U+265C || &amp;#9820; || &amp;#x265C;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess bishop}}                    || {{huge|&#9821;}} || U+265D || &amp;#9821; || &amp;#x265D;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess knight}}                    || {{huge|&#9822;}} || U+265E || &amp;#9822; || &amp;#x265E;
|-
|style="text-align:left" | {{smallcaps|black chess pawn}}                      || {{huge|&#9823;}} || U+265F || &amp;#9823; || &amp;#x265F;
|}

===Chess symbols===
{{Unicode chart chess}}

==Emoji==
{{Contains special characters|emoticon|section=section}}

In Unicode 11.0, an emojified representation of the character {{Unichar|265F}} was added.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18018-chess-emoji.pdf |title=Chess Emoji Submission |last=Abdu |first=Juber Moulvi |date=2017-10-04 |website=unicode.org |publisher=Unicode Consortium |access-date=2024-08-12}}</ref> As of Unicode 15.1, only this character has an emoji version. In 2024, a proposal was submitted to include emoji versions of the other standard chess symbols.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2024/24066-esr-report-q2-2024.pdf |format=URL |title=Emoji Standard & Research Working Group Report for UTC #179 (2024Q2) |last=Daniel |first=Jeniffer |date=2024-04-15 |website=unicode.org |publisher=Unicode Consortium |access-date=2024-08-12}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable nounderlines" style="border-collapse:collapse;background:#FFFFFF;font-size:large;text-align:center"
|+style="font-size:small" | Emoji variation sequences
|-style="background:#F8F8F8;font-size:small"
| style="text-align:right" | U+ || 265F 
|-style="background:#F8F8F8;font-size:small"
| style="text-align:left" | default&nbsp;presentation || text
|-
| style="background:#F8F8F8;font-size:small;text-align:left" | base&nbsp;code&nbsp;point || ♟
|-
| style="background:#F8F8F8;font-size:small;text-align:left" | base+VS15 (text) || {{Emoji presentation|♟|text}}
|-
| style="background:#F8F8F8;font-size:small;text-align:left" | base+VS16 (emoji) || {{Emoji presentation|♟}}
|}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Chess}}

[[Category:Chess notation]]
[[Category:Lists of symbols]]
[[Category:Unicode]]