FAX ℻ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

Type the Facsimile sign or Fax symbol ℻  into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook.  Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac.

FAX ℻ symbol is a single character with the letters FAX, normally used to prefix a telephone number in a letter heading or footer.

For younger readers: a Fax machine was a 20th Century device for sending pages (black ink only) over telephone lines. It was a popular form of communication in the final decades of the dark ages before the Internet arrived. 

There’s also a Fax emoji📠 (Unicode 1F4E0) See the old Alt + X trick for Word and Outlook

FAX ℻  symbol is complemented by the Telephone ℡ symbol,

How FAX ℻ looks in different fonts

FAX ℻ codes

These are the important code numbers or values you’ll need to enter the FAX or ℻

Decimal:  8507  Hex:   213B

Web: ℻ ℻ or ℻

(web codes aren’t used in Microsoft Office, we’ve included them for the sake of completeness.)

Word and Outlook

The FAX ℻  sign does NOT have an inbuilt shortcut in Word.

Use the standard Word Alt + X symbol shortcut 213B  + Alt + X

Once in a document you can copy it to AutoCorrect and make your own shortcut.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

Insert | Symbols | Symbol and look for the  FAX symbol.

Windows

In Windows there are several shortcuts to enter the FAX ℻  character into any program, but they use a numeric keypad, not the number row above the letters.

Alt + 8507  

Windows 11/10 Emoji Panel

The Windows 11/10 Emoji Panel does not have the ℻  character, at least not that we can see. The Emoji Panel doesn’t have a search function for symbols!

See Emoji Panel is part of Windows that totally sucks

Windows Character Map

The Windows Character Map accessory in all Windows releases

Character Map has a search feature, something missing from the Insert | Symbol in Office.

MacOS and Office for Mac inserting characters

On a Mac, to enter the FAX ℻ symbol:

  • Command + Control + Spacebar shortcut to open the Character Viewer.  
  • Search for “ Facsmilie“ and the Viewer should find the symbol you need.

Despite the name Character Viewer, the Apple system tool will also insert characters into any program, including Office for Mac.

TEL – Telephone ℡ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Apple command ⌘ symbol in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Male ♂ Female ♁ both ⚥ symbols in Word and Office
Inserting Symbols is harder in Office for Mac