How to Insert Playing Card Symbols in Microsoft Word

This tutorial shows how to insert playing card symbols in Microsoft Word.

The four traditional playing card symbols—the heart, club, diamond, and spade—were popularized in the fifteenth century.^* In fact, we might consider them antique emoji because they have a storied history of expressing emotion well beyond the gaming table. This longevity makes them an excellent option for adding universal symbolism to your documents—to your informal documents, that is.

Don’t miss the bonus section: At the end of this tutorial, we’ll also look at how to use playing card symbols as bullet points.

This tutorial is available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than150 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel.

The images shown here are from Word for Microsoft 365. These steps also apply to Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010. However, your interface may look slightly different in those older versions of the software.

How to Insert Playing Card Symbols

Place your cursor where you want to insert the symbol.

Figure 1. Cursor placed for symbol insertion

Select the Insert tab in the ribbon.

Insert tab in Word 365 — Figure 2. Insert tab

Select the Symbol button in the Symbols group.

Symbol button in Word 365 — Figure 3. Symbol button

Select More Symbols from the menu.

More Symbols option in Word 365 — Figure 4. More Symbols option

Select one of the following from the Font menu in the Symbol dialog box:
- Times New Roman
- Arial
- Courier New
- Century
- Lucida Sans Unicode
- Symbol

Important Note: The playing card symbols are part of font files. The fonts listed above should be available to most Word users. However, the playing card symbols may be included in other fonts installed on your computer.

Font menu in the Symbol dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 5. Font menu

Select Miscellaneous Symbols from the Subset menu. (You don’t have to make this selection if you chose Symbol in step 5 because the Symbol font doesn’t have any subsets.)

Subset menu in the Symbol dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 6. Subset menu

Select the playing card symbol you want from the symbol menu.

Symbol menu in the Symbol dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 7. Symbol menu

As shown in the table below, the symbols don’t look the same in every font, so you may want to explore multiple options to find the style that best suits your content.

Table showing the spade, club, heart, and diamond in Times New Roman, Lucida Sans Unicode, and Symbol font in Word 365 — Table 1. Playing card symbol examples by font

Select the Insert button.

Insert button in the Symbol dialog box in Word 365 — Figure 8. Insert button

Your symbol should appear in your text immediately.

Inserted spade symbol in Word 365 — Figure 9. Inserted spade symbol

Pro Tip: You can insert multiple symbols without closing the Symbol dialog box.

Select the Close button to close the Symbol dialog box.

Symbol dialog box Close button in Word 365 — Figure 10. Close button

After inserting your symbol, you can select it and change the font size and color just as you would regular text.

How to Use Playing Card Symbols as Bullet Points

If you already have a bulleted list that you want to convert to playing card symbols, select the entire list before performing the following steps.

Select the Home tab in the ribbon.

Home tab in Word 365 — Figure 11. Home tab

Select the Bullets menu arrow in the Paragraph group.

Bullets menu arrow in Word 365 — Figure 12. Bullets menu arrow

Select Define New Bullet from the menu.

Define New Bullet option in Word 365 — Figure 13. Define New Bullet option

Select the Symbol button in the Define New Bullet dialog box.

Define New Bullet dialog box Symbol button in Word 365 — Figure 14. Define New Bullet Symbol button

Select a playing card symbol from the Symbol font menu.

Alternatively, you can choose one of the fonts listed in step 5, above, and then select a symbol from the Miscellaneous Symbols Subset menu, as shown in step 6, above.