Heavy asterisk ✱
A bold, thick-armed asterisk. It's the go-to choice when the regular * looks too thin.
Heavy asterisk codes
| Unicode | U+2731 |
| Official name | HEAVY ASTERISK |
| Unicode block | Dingbats |
| HTML (hex) | ✱ |
| HTML (decimal) | ✱ |
| CSS | content: "\2731"; |
| JavaScript | "\u2731" |
| Python | "\N{HEAVY ASTERISK}" |
| URL-encoded | %E2%9C%B1 |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 9C B1 |
How to type ✱
- Mac: press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer and search for “heavy asterisk”. Or switch to the Unicode Hex Input keyboard, hold Option and type
2731. - Windows: in Word, type
2731and press Alt + X. Windows has no Alt code for this character, so copying it from this page is the fastest route in other apps. - Chromebook and Linux: press Ctrl + Shift + U, type
2731, then press Space or Enter. - iPhone and Android: copy it from this page, then save it as a text replacement so a short code like
;asttypes it for you. Here's how on iPhone.
What the heavy asterisk is used for
- Eye-catching bullets in social media bios and posts.
- Highlighting a key line in plain-text documents.
- A bolder footnote mark in headings.
- Logos and wordmarks built from text characters.
Good to know
It comes from the Dingbats block, which Unicode based on the classic ITC Zapf Dingbats ornament font. Because it's a separate character and not just a bold *, it stays heavy even in places that strip formatting, like usernames, captions and SMS.
Will it show up? Supported on all current versions of iOS, Android, macOS and Windows.