Which pencil is which
✎ LOWER RIGHT PENCIL points down to the right, as if writing. ✏︎ PENCIL lies flat, ✐ UPPER RIGHT PENCIL points up, and ✑ ✒︎ are a white and a black fountain-pen nib. ✍︎ is a writing hand. All of these have been in Unicode since version 1.1 as part of the Dingbats.
Unicode 7.0 added left-pointing writing tools: 🖉 pencil, 🖊︎ ballpoint pen, 🖋︎ fountain pen, 🖌︎ paintbrush and 🖍︎ crayon. 📝 memo, a page with a pencil, is the go-to emoji for notes and to-do lists.
Why ✎ stays flat and ✏︎ does not
✏︎ and ✒︎ also have emoji versions, so phones often show ✏︎ as a yellow pencil. ✎ and ✐ have no emoji form, which is why they are popular in bios and labels: they always match your text color and never turn into a picture.
If you want ✏︎ flat too, set Symbol style to Text before copying.
Pencil as "edit" and "write"
In apps a pencil means edit, so ✎ makes a clear label in documents, Notion pages and spreadsheets: "✎ Edit profile", "✐ Notes". Writers use it in bios ("✎ writer · poet"), and students use ✎ and 📚 in study posts and planners. Combine it with a check mark for to-do lists or a book symbol for reading notes.
To type ✎, write 270E in Word and press Alt + X, or use ✎ in HTML. On a Mac, press Control + Command + Space and search for "pencil"; on Windows, press Win + .. Phone emoji keyboards give you the emoji ✏︎, so copy ✎ from this page for the text version.