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Wikipedia:Displaying the international wheelchair symbol

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Why am I seeing a question mark or empty rectangle instead of the wheelchair symbol?

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The short answer is that you do not have a compatible font installed. To install a suitable font, follow these steps:

  • Click here to download the font DejaVu Sans.
  • Inside the file you just downloaded, open the folder titled "dejavu-sans-ttf-2.18"
  • Copy the file labeled DejaVuSans and paste it to a convenient location such as your desktop.

Now, for Windows Vista:

  • Right-click DejaVuSans and click "Install"

For Windows XP:

  • Click Start, open the Control Panel, and double-click Fonts. If after opening the Control Panel you do not see the Fonts folder, click "Appearance and Themes" and Fonts will be in the See Also pane on the left.
  • Copy DejaVuSans from your desktop and paste it into the Fonts folder. You cannot copy it directly form the ZIP archive to the Fonts folder.

For Mac OS X:

  • Open (double-click) DejaVuSans and then click "Install font" on the resulting window.

For Linux (GNOME or KDE):

Type "mv DejaVuSans.ttf ~/.fonts" or, if you are root, "mv DejaVuSans.ttf /usr/share/fonts".

After completing these steps, refresh this page. If you see the wheelchair icon then the font has been correctly installed and you can delete the copy of DejaVuSans on your desktop.


The long answer is that most of us would like to send you a copy of the International Symbol of Access as an image file that your browser can easily display. However, the Wikimedia Foundation's licensing policy forbids us from hosting non-free content except in circumstances even more narrow than fair use. Since the International Symbol of Access is copyrighted and subject to usage restrictions, it is considered non-free, and fair use only applies where there is accompanying critical commentary, such as in the article about the International Symbol of Access. To work around this issue, we display the wheelchair symbol as a character in text and require users to download a compatible font hosted on another web site.