Webdings font as icon

The use of Webdings font. Is it safe?

[tomda]

I am currently using Webdings font to make tiny texticon (loading is much faster).

I would like to know if the use of Webdings is safe. Is the font understood by all platforms or is it only used by Microsoft.

Or should I make my own gif?

Thanks

Tommy

[DrDoc]

It is not a safe font to use... It is a MS font, and does not come as a default system font. I'd recommend using the GIF.

[R1chard]

Well, according to the data, the Wingdings font is more common than Verdana, Comic Sans MS, Arial Black, Garamond, Tahoma, Courier New and Century. So that's quite safe.

It's pre-installed with Windows since W95, and also comes with IE (even on Mac) and with MS Office (even on Mac), so that must account for well over 98% of users. Webdings (and Wing2) are probably close behind. And of course, it's free, so Linux and Amiga users may have it too. Anyway, that's explicitly what those fonts are designed for.

As for browser support, I just tested and it works with IE5, IE6, Netscape 4, Netscape 7. Mozilla Phoenix and Firefox, OffByOne, but not Opera 5...