You won’t typically find Emojis in formal writing. However, they’re commonly used in digital communications. You’ll find them on social media, text messaging, and a myriad of other apps available on desktop and mobile devices.

While using Emojis in a manuscript mimics text conversations between two parties, there are challenges:

• While Emojis are a UNICODE standard, their implementations are copyrighted. Reproducing these for print may violate the services’ or devices’ terms of use;
• Implementations don’t always support the full set or add some of their own. This creates challenges for maintaining a consistent look and feel across all devices and mediums; and
• Emojis are often used as fonts. Fonts may be stripped out or replaced by the printer/publisher.

Here are some points to consider:

• Use Short Names instead of Emojis;
• Use Emojis that are easily licenced, such as OpenMoji;
• Embed them as images, preferably as vector graphics; and
• Consider the use of line art vice colour Emojis for a consistent experience.