How To Type Emoji On Your PC Using Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Why should smartphones have all the fun?

- Mark Hachman

How can I type emoji on my PC keyboard? It’s a question that you’ve probably asked, given up on, shrugged, and then pulled out your smartphone. Now, with Windows 10 and the Fall Creators Update (go.pcworld.com/4all), a new emoji keyboard will make adding emoji to Twitter, Facebook, and other apps a snap.

While there’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned smiley-face :) or GIF, an emoji is a simple way to add a bit of fun to your communications. That’s the whole point of emoji, after all! And while they’ve been part of smartphone culture for years, Microsoft has now added its easy emoji keyboard to Windows 10. For now, we’ll show you how to bring up emoji under the current version of Windows 10 (the Creators Update, which many of you still have), and how it will become easier once the Fall Creators Update drops. (We used Insider Build 16215 [go. pcworld.com/inbu] for testing, then checked it against the Fall Creators Update, itself.)

HOW TO TYPE EMOJI UNDER WINDOWS 10

What was so annoying about the state of emoji in the Windows 10 Creators Update is that Microsoft almost, but not quite, had it right. A tool called the On-Screen Keyboard is actually an accessibility app that you can launch using the Start menu, or, via the Control Panel, trigger to launch whenever you boot Windows.