Why some unicode can't be displayed, like 129659?

[FreemanZ]

hi Community, 

I need to show the x-ray icon (with unicode 129659) in Power BI. However it doesn't work. 

Do you know why and how to get it solved?

[v-saisrao-msft]

Hi @FreemanZ,

I hope you had a chance to review the solution shared me and @danextian . If it addressed your question, please consider accepting it as the solution — it helps others find answers more quickly.
If you're still facing the issue, feel free to reply, and we’ll be happy to assist further.

Thank you.

[v-saisrao-msft]

Hi @FreemanZ,

Please check or update to the latest version of the desktop as it worked in system.

Thank you.

[danextian · Accepted solution]

Hi @FreemanZ 

The official documentation for the UNICHAR function does not explicitly explain why certain Unicode values result in errors or blanks. This is according to AI:

Power BI’s UNICHAR() (DAX) only supports Unicode code points within the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP)—that is, values from 1 to 65,535 (U+0000–U+FFFF). Characters outside this range, like U+1F9EB (129659), are not supported and will simply return blank or nothing 🚫. This BMP-only limitation is due to the underlying text engine used by Power BI, which doesn’t handle the higher “supplementary planes.”

[Ritaf1983]

Hi @FreemanZ 

I ran some tests on my machine, and I experienced the same behavior — these Unicode characters didn’t work at first when used in a table column, but they did display correctly right away when used in a measure.

From what I’ve observed, it seems that the rendering engine in Power BI doesn’t automatically apply the right font for higher Unicode codes in Table View or the Data View — likely because those views aren’t optimized for rich visual rendering.

However, once you create a measure using the same UNICHAR code and display it in a visual (like a Card or Table), Power BI seems to “learn” what font is needed, and suddenly the character starts appearing correctly even in the column view.

So my recommendation is:

1. First create a measure with UNICHAR(...) and use it in a visual.

2. Once it renders successfully, check the column again — the icon will often start showing properly there too.

The pbix is also attached

If this post helps, then please consider Accepting it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[FreemanZ]

hi @Ritaf1983 ,

Many thanks for the trial and apparently it works on your machine. 💗

Tried as you suggested on my report and yours as well, but issue persists in both cases. 💔

[Ritaf1983]

Did you try all of them as a measures?