---
title: Font Awesome Icons Not Showing or Appearing as Squares in WordPress
description: Font Awesome icon showing as a square on your WordPress back button? The stylesheet is usually missing; here is how to load it.
url: "https://wpfactory.com/docs/font-awesome-icon-not-showing/"
updated: "2026-09-27"
category: Troubleshooting
tags:
  - Back Button Widget for WordPress
---

# Font Awesome Icons Not Showing or Appearing as Squares in WordPress

When you add an icon to the button in [Back Button Anywhere Widget for WordPress](https://wpfactory.com/item/back-button-widget-wordpress-plugin/) with the `fa` attribute and it renders as a blank square, the Font Awesome stylesheet is almost always missing. Font Awesome is a free feature, and it is controlled in the Font Awesome section under **WPFactory > Back Button**.

### Common symptoms

- A blank square or unknown-character symbol appears instead of the icon.
- Text styling works, but the icon glyph does not render.

### Typical causes

- The Font Awesome library is not loaded on the page.
- Two different Font Awesome versions are loaded (from the theme, another plugin, and this plugin) and clash.
- The icon class in the shortcode is wrong.

### Step-by-step fix

1. **Enable Font Awesome loading:** in the Font Awesome section, set **Load** to **Yes** so the stylesheet is added to your pages.
2. **Avoid double loading:** if your theme or another plugin already loads Font Awesome, set **Load** to **No** here so only one copy loads.
3. **Use a valid icon class:** match the version you have loaded, for example `[alg_back_button fa="fas fa-chevron-left" fa_template="%icon% Back"]`. Check the `fa-` prefix and the exact icon name.
4. **Clear caches and reload:** flush your caching plugin and browser cache, then view the page.
5. **Inspect in the browser:** open dev tools, reload, and check the Network tab to confirm the Font Awesome CSS and font files load without errors.

**Note:** the default Font Awesome URL in settings points at a Font Awesome 6 build. If you paste your own URL, make sure the icon classes you use match that version, since class names differ between major versions.

### If the icon still will not load

Fall back to a plain text label, or a CSS background image, and reach out on the [Back Button Widget support forum](https://wpfactory.com/support/item/back-button-widget-wordpress-plugin/) with your Font Awesome version and the shortcode you used.

Related articles

- [How to Add a Font Awesome Icon to the Back Button](https://wpfactory.com/docs/add-font-awesome-icon-to-back-button/)
- [Back Button Not Showing or Working](https://wpfactory.com/docs/back-button-not-working/)
- [How to Customize the Back Button (Color, Style, Position, Icon)](https://wpfactory.com/docs/how-to-customize-the-back-button-color-style-position-icon/)
- [Understanding Back Button Navigation Behavior](https://wpfactory.com/docs/back-button-navigation-behavior/)
- [Back Button Widget Issues with Custom or Block Themes](https://wpfactory.com/docs/back-button-widget-theme-issues/)

 

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