What character can I use to display the "four arrows icon"?

Question

What Unicode character can I use do display this character?

I currently need it to write a .doc document, but I would like to know if a Unicode character is available, in order to print it out in an app, or if some font has this glyph in it.

Fabled

There are a LOT of arrow symbols defined by Unicode, but none that come close to what you are looking for (there are arrows that point in 2 directions at a time, but none that point in 4 directions). You will likely just have to use an embedded image instead. – Kinlaw

@RemyLebeau, that's what I found too.. I spent a lot of time watching carefully all the arrow symbols, just to find out that none has 4 arrows :( – Fabled

There are a few dedicated diagonal arrows like ⤧ ⤪⤨ ⤩ but just with two heads. Why? – Appraise

I contacted some members of the Unicode Technical Committee, and I also wrote a tentative proposal for addition of this and some other four-way arrows symbols to Unicode. My tentative proposal was discussed on last week of April 2021, and decided that wide adoption of this symbol must be proved in public documents, emails and word-processing documents. I didn't find many evidences of its use, then I decided to dedicate my time for other things. Good luck to whoever wants to add this symbol to Unicode! I still would like it to be added. – Fabled

@ThomasWeller I think they could have been added as characters found in some font that have been added to Unicode long time ago. Now, in order to add new characters to Unicode, there are more strict rules. – Fabled

Answer 1

These glyphs:

• ✥ FOUR CLUB-SPOKED ASTERISK
• ✢ FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK
• ✣ FOUR BALLOON-SPOKED ASTERISK

are the best matches. If used with little font sizes, they can do the job.

An ugly alternative would be using three glyphs, maybe mixing different font sizes and faces: ←↕→

UPDATE: A (great) alternative exists for HTML. The trick is placing two characters with absolute positioning, one over the other:

UPDATE2: added another variant of the "rotated" four-arrows, using triangle-headed arrows

.container {
  width: 100px;
  height: 100px;
  position: relative;
}
.first,
.second,
.third,
.fourth {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
}
.second {
  z-index: 10;
}
.third {
  z-index: 20;
}
.fourth {
  z-index: 30;
}

body {
    font-family: Monospace; font-size: 50px;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="first">&#x2194;</div>
  <div class="second">&#x2195;</div>
</div>

<div class="container">
  <div class="first">&#x2928;</div>
  <div class="second">&#x292A;</div>
</div>

<div class="container">
  <div class="first">&#x2B66;</div>
  <div class="second">&#x2B67;</div>
  <div class="third">&#x2B68;</div>
  <div class="fourth">&#x2B69;</div>
</div>

Fabled

I searched through over a thousand glyphs, including Hangul, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese ones but found nothing better. Still, this is not the correct answer, and I hope someone finds a correct answer (maybe in a non-latin language, or in a future Unicode standard) – Fabled

the last container could be transform: rotate(45deg) – Confetti

I was looking for this character to represent a keyboard layer for navigation/arrows. There is nothing with arrows but in my case I settled for a character resembling a D-pad: ✜. I found this searching for cross. Other alternatives: ✙ ✚ ✛ – Homeroom

Answer 2

To get &nbsp; <span style="position:relative; font-size:2rem">&UpDownArrow;<span style="position:absolute; left:-.25em; top:-.025em;">&LeftRightArrow;</span></span> &nbsp; <code><a href="https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2195">use &UpDownArrow;</a> <a href="https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2194">and &LeftRightArrow;</a></code>

Confetti