Insert symbol into a cell using closedxml and character code

Question

I'm aware of the following solution for adding symbols into cells using closedxml in vb

ws.Cell(1, 1).Value = "❶ Symbol";

(How can I add symbols to a cell using closedxml?)

And I am currently using the below example to set the wingdings value in c#

private void CreateExcelTableBodyCellSymbolCircle(IXLWorksheet worksheet, string cellID, XLColor colour)
{
    const string circleSymbol = "l";

    PopulateExcelTableCellWithSymbol(worksheet, cellID, colour, circleSymbol);
}

private void PopulateExcelTableCellWithSymbol(IXLWorksheet worksheet, string cellID, XLColor colour, string symbolValue)
{
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).DataType = XLCellValues.Text;
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Value = symbolValue;
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Style.Font.FontName = "Wingdings";
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Style.Font.FontColor = colour;
}

But I'm looking for a way to add the symbols into the cell by utilising the symbol's hex character code (displayed in the symbol popup in excel)

Could you clarify what you mean by "the symbol character code"? It's not clear to me what you want to be able to do - if you could show the code you'd *like* to use, but which presumably doesn't work at the moment, that would really help to clarify the question. — Jon Skeet, Aug 01 '18 at 09:28
You talk about "calling a function with the symbol's hex character code" but you haven't shown what *exactly* you mean by that. Would you really have the character code as a string, which is what you appear to be trying to use in the second snippet? If you have a `char`, you can just call `ToString()` on that char, for example. — Jon Skeet, Aug 01 '18 at 10:04
@DaisyShipton Ill be writing a function to add the hex character code into the string, as the previous example uses a string with the symbol character. Passing in the hex value into the function and then formatting the value assigned to the cell with the passed in hex value — Kelsall, Aug 01 '18 at 10:09
I'm asking you to show what you'd like the function to look like. Then the answer can basically be an implementation of that function. — Jon Skeet, Aug 01 '18 at 10:35

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 01 '18 at 10:39

This is more about strings in C# and less about ClosedXML. You can use the char.ConvertFromUtf32() method like this:

worksheet.Cell(cellID).Value = char.ConvertFromUtf32(0x008C) + " Symbol";

PS: For me, 008C does not give a valid symbol, but for example 2776 gives a symbol similar to that in your question.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 01 '18 at 11:00

Following on from Raidri's answer - which I've accepted - as it was more along the lines strings. The solution in C# is below

private void CreateExcelTableBodyCellSymbolCircle(IXLWorksheet worksheet, string cellID, XLColor colour)
{
    string circleSymbol = char.ConvertFromUtf32(0x006C);

    PopulateExcelTableCellWithSymbol(worksheet, cellID, colour, circleSymbol);
}

private void PopulateExcelTableCellWithSymbol(IXLWorksheet worksheet, string cellID, XLColor colour, string symbolValue)
{
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).DataType = XLCellValues.Text;
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Value = symbolValue;
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Style.Font.SetFontName("Wingdings");
    worksheet.Cell(cellID).Style.Font.SetFontColor(colour);
}

Insert symbol into a cell using closedxml and character code

2 Answers2