'Most robust method for showing Icon next to text [closed]

There are different ways to show graphics in a page next to text. I need to include a graphic/icon that indicates a new tab will be opened.

I know it's possible to do using at least these different methods:

Unicode character from default fonts
Unicode character from CSS loaded fonts
Inline SVG
Inline PNG

Please suggest a method to do this, and explain why or why not it's robust on different browsers and operating systems.

Solution 1:^[1]

I am coming late to this party, but look what I have found at CodePen !

a[target="_blank"]::after {
  content: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAQElEQVR42qXKwQkAIAxDUUdxtO6/RBQkQZvSi8I/pL4BoGw/XPkh4XigPmsUgh0626AjRsgxHTkUThsG2T/sIlzdTsp52kSS1wAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==);
  margin: 0 3px 0 5px;
}

<a class="external" href="https://example.org" target="_blank">external link</a>

Solution 2:^[2]

For many Unicode characters you'll need to use the following font (at least for Windows, please comment for Linux and Mac if you're able to test):

a:link {font-family: 'Segoe UI Symbol' !important;}

Also you can apply CSS selectors to use the target attribute as so:

a[target='blank']
a[target]

Keep in mind that browsers are funny about the behavior of the a selector and a:link / a:visited so definitely test with that in mind.

Unicode 'Two Joined Squares' character:

?

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/29c9/index.htm

CSS

a[target='_blank']::after {content: '\29C9';}

Support

Mac OS X, Yosemite: 2 fonts, Apple Symbol and STIXGeneral

Unicode 'White Square with Upper Right Quadrant' character:

?

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25F3/index.htm

CSS

a[target='_blank']::after {content: '\25F3';}

Support

Mac OS X, Yosemite: 3 fonts, Apple Symbol, STIXGeneral, Menlo.

Unicode 'Upper Right Drop-Shadowed White Square' character:

?

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2750/index.htm

CSS

a[target='_blank']::after {content: '\2750';}

Support

Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite has three fonts: Arial Unicode MS, Menlo and Zapf Dingbats.

Solution 3:^[3]

I like this unicode symbol for Open-in-new-window

?? or ?

North East Arrow Make sure you're using utf-8 html.

Html is ↗

Solution 4:^[4]

There's also U+1F5D7 OVERLAP: ?, added in Unicode 7.0 (June 2014).

Its comment is "overlapping offset windows".

HTML entity: 🗗

(fileformat.info)

Solution 5:^[5]

I'd go with something like this: opens in a new window

The icon you have chosen, as others have mentioned, is widely used by wikipedia and other sites to represent links to external sites. But this is more of a personal preference and not a web standard.

Solution 6:^[6]

The closest I could find was NORTH WEST ARROW TO CORNER ? and SOUTH EAST ARROW TO CORNER ? -- but whoever created these icons didn't do NORTH EAST ARROW TO CORNER

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/category/So/list.htm

Solution 7:^[7]

OK, I'm late to the party, but here's what I came up with improving on all the other folk's answers:

I found super neat icon here: https://icons8.com/icon/43738/external-link
Minified/optimized the SVG here: https://petercollingridge.appspot.com/svg-optimiser
And embedded base64 of the resulting SVG into a CSS style rule specifying all the sizes in ems:

a[target="_blank"]::after {
  content: "";
  width: 1em;
  height: 1em;
  margin: 0 0.05em 0 0.1em;
  background: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCAxNiAxNiIgd2lkdGg9IjE2IiBoZWlnaHQ9IjE2Ij48cGF0aCBkPSJNOSAyTDkgMyAxMi4zIDMgNiA5LjMgNi43IDEwIDEzIDMuNyAxMyA3IDE0IDcgMTQgMlpNNCA0QzIuOSA0IDIgNC45IDIgNkwyIDEyQzIgMTMuMSAyLjkgMTQgNCAxNEwxMCAxNEMxMS4xIDE0IDEyIDEzLjEgMTIgMTJMMTIgNyAxMSA4IDExIDEyQzExIDEyLjYgMTAuNiAxMyAxMCAxM0w0IDEzQzMuNCAxMyAzIDEyLjYgMyAxMkwzIDZDMyA1LjQgMy40IDUgNCA1TDggNSA5IDRaIi8+PC9zdmc+) no-repeat;
  background-size: contain;
  display: inline-block;
  vertical-align: text-bottom;
}

An <a href="" target="_blank">external link</a> is super pretty! ?<br />
<span style="font-size: 2em;">In <a href="" target="_blank">all</a> sizes!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 3em;">Even <a href="" target="_blank">super large</a> ones!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 0.5em;">And in <a href="" target="_blank">super tiny ones</a> too!</span><br />

It works absolutely amazing for me!
I'm probably never going back to whatever solution there might be.

Solution 8:^[8]

Haven't seen the following option.
It's just css and ends up like this:

See here: https://codepen.io/Bets/pen/KGBqqb (the run snippet below does not display right)

Edit: Added another option that does not need another element after link.

   

 .newWindow {
      display:inline-block;
      margin-left:5px;
      position: relative;
      border: 1px solid;
      width: 8px;
      height: 8px;
    }

    .newWindow:after {
      position: absolute;
      top:-8px;
      right:-2px;
      font-size:0.8em;
      content:"\1f855";
    }

    .newWindow:before {
      position: absolute;
      top: -3px;
      right: -3px;
      content: " ";
      border: 4px solid white;
    }

a[target="_blank"] {
         position: relative;
    }

a[target="_blank"]:after {
     position: absolute;
     top: 3px;
     right: -15px;
     content: "\1f855";
     font-size: 13px;
     color: black;
     line-height: 3px;
     height: 5px;
     width: 5px;
     border-right: 2px solid white;
     border-top: 2px solid white;
}

a[target="_blank"]:before {
     position: absolute;
     top: 4px;
     right: -15px;
     content: " ";
     border: 1px solid black;
     width: 8px;
     height: 8px;
}

<a href="#">Link followed by span</a><span class="newWindow"></span>
<br/>
<a href="#" target="_blank">Just link</a>

Solution 9:^[9]

Four useful symbols: ? ? ? ?

? &#x29C9; &#10697;??U+29C9 TWO JOINED SQUARES
? &#x2750; &#10064;??U+2750 UPPER RIGHT DROP-SHADOWED WHITE SQUARE
? &#x2348; &#9032;??U+2348 APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL QUAD RIGHTWARDS ARROW
? &#x2398; &#9112;??U+2398 NEXT PAGE

Solution 10:^[10]

Try |?&nearr;?|:

|&#863;&nearr;&#817;|

And for compatibility with Arial

&#8739;&#863;&nearr;&#817;&#8739;

Solution 11:^[11]

Nowadays you can use the icons from Font Awesome 5, from cheatsheet - solid icons:

Which comes close to the icon that was chosen.

Looking at solid.css I noticed that the name of the font is "Font Awesome 5 Free":

a[target='_blank']::after {
    content: ' \f35d';
    font-family: "Font Awesome 5 Free";
    color: blue;
}

Or in case you don't use Font Awesome css and want to target the font only:

@font-face {
    font-family: "FontAwesomeSolid";
    font-weight: bold;
    font-style: normal;
    src : url("https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/5.11.2/webfonts/fa-solid-900.ttf") format("truetype");
}

a[target='_blank']::after {
    content: ' \f35d';
    font-family: "FontAwesomeSolid";
    color: blue;
}

Solution 12:^[12]

I know I'm late to the party, but FWIW here's my solution ¯\(?)/¯,

HTML:

<a href="#" target="_blank">Your link</a>

JavaScript:

Vanila JS

var tlinks = document.querySelectorAll("a[target=_blank]");
for (var x = 0; x < tlinks.length; x++) {
    tlinks[x].title = "Opens in new tab/window";
    var currentClass = tlinks[x].getAttribute("class");
    if (currentClass == null) currentClass = "";
    tlinks[x].setAttribute("class", currentClass + " new-tab");
}

jQuery

$("a[target='_blank']").attr({title:"Link opens in a new tab"}).addClass("new-tab");

CSS:

.new-tab:after {
    display: inline-block;
    content: "?";
    position: relative;
    top: -5px;
    margin-left: 2px;
    transform: rotate(90deg);
}

Demo:

Here's a Pen: https://codepen.io/ricardozea/pen/dyVXXVr (this link, for example, SHOULD open in a new window, lol).

What about this icon ??

I would've loved to be able to use this icon ?, the problem is that it's not supported in iOS devices and I think macOS either.

For years this technique has been very useful for me because:

I don't have to manually add a title attribute every time I create a link that opens in a new tab.
I don't have to add the new window icon.
The JavaScript and the CSS do the heavy lifting, all I need to do is add target="_blank" and that's it.
If I don't have access to the HTML but still need/want to enhance the accessibility of an interface, I can do so with this method.
This method works great for both inline and block-level elements.

Solution 13:^[13]

On my WordPress blog, I've had to link to several sites that apparently disable the back button (Facebook and Google Translate results). For those links I set them to open a new window. I've collected little "new window" icons but they always interrupt the line spacing (maybe it's a WordPress thing; there's no extra space around the icons) so I decided to go with a title="" that says "Link opens new window" and a text icon [+] within the link, at the end of the link text, separated by a space.

Solution 14:^[14]

Here's an "external link" symbol from 177 characters of SVG:

<svg height="40" width="30" viewBox="0 0 1024 768"><path d="M640 768H128V258L256 256V128H0v768h768V576H640V768zM384 128l128 128L320 448l128 128 192-192 128 128V128H384z"/></svg>

<svg height="40" width="30" viewBox="0 0 1024 768"><path d="M640 768H128V258L256 256V128H0v768h768V576H640V768zM384 128l128 128L320 448l128 128 192-192 128 128V128H384z"/></svg>

...and here's the source including discussion on why Unicode rejected implementation of an "external link sign".

Solution 15:^[15]

How about something like the attached image (which anyone's free to use or edit)? enter image description here

1: enter image description here

I'm thinking of adding this to the right of existing single buttons so they become a horizontal button group giving users the option to click the link and open it in a new window.

Solution 16:^[16]

The short answer is no, there's not a well defined icon to use. Any icon described in the responses here should suffice but...

As the icon is aimed at meeting a WCAG Success Criterion 3.2.5: Change on request, its purpose needs to be described, both visually and assistively.

To meet that requirement I suggest adding an aria label to an embedded icon, or alt text to an image, along with a title to give the icon meaning.

<a href="someplace.html" target="_blank">Link description
    <svg aria-label="New window" title="New window" style="fill:currentColor;width:1em;height:1em" viewBox="0 0 24 24">
        <path d="M5 3C4 3 3 4 3 5v14c0 1 1 2 2 2h14c1 0 2-1 2-2v-7h-2v7H5V5h7V3H5zm9 0v2h3.6l-9.3 9.3 1.4 1.4L19 6.4V10h2V3h-7z"/>
    </svg>
</a>

Or, if the "New window" icon is set in the background of the link, as in the [target="blank"]::after solutions offered:

<a href="someplace.html" target="_blank" title="New window" aria-label="Link description (opens in new window)">Link description</a>

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	wOxxOm
Solution 2
Solution 3	TrophyGeek
Solution 4	Jon Schneider
Solution 5	Gichamba
Solution 6	chovy
Solution 7
Solution 8
Solution 9	Souleste
Solution 10	Peter Rader
Solution 11
Solution 12
Solution 13	Pete Hummers
Solution 14	ashleedawg
Solution 15
Solution 16

'Most robust method for showing Icon next to text [closed]

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

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Solution 3:[3]

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Solution 5:[5]

Solution 6:[6]

Solution 7:[7]

Solution 8:[8]

Solution 9:[9]

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Solution 15:[15]

Solution 16:[16]

Sources

Related Questions

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