With regular fonts, you don't have much problems.
Each symbol has it's specific code, independent of the font.

Say 263A, Alt+X (or using the decimal code: Alt+9786) produces the Unicode character "white smiling face", or smiley (though most fonts may not contain that special symbol).
AscW(Selection.Text) used on that character will give you 9786,
Hex(AscW(Selection.Text)) will give you 263A.

But decorative fonts like the Wingdings font you have mentioned are problematic.
Word has no way to determine what symbols such a symbol font may contain.
Those symbols aren't even necessarily defined in the Unicode Standard.

So Word uses codes in the code page at U+F000 (decimal 61440) for them.

Take a "smiley" from Wingdings as an example,
-- It is produced by the "J" key
(which has hex code 4A, or decimal code 74)
-- corresponds to U+F04A (= F000+4A)
equals decimal 61514 (61440+74)

You can for example search for it with u+61514 in "Find what".
Or you can insert it in text using ChrW(61514) or ChrW(&HF04A) in a macro (or F04A, Alt+X, or Alt+61514, in text), and format it in "Wingdings" font.
Here you need both the code and the font to specify the character.

Regards,
Klaus