The present disclosure is applicable to the communications field and provides a character updating method and apparatus. The method includes: receiving a character update request sent by a client, the character update request carrying a unicode of a character; searching for a file of which a file name is same with the unicode of the character, the file being configured to store single character data, the single character data being obtained by resolving character data stored in a font into single character data; and sending the found file to the client, so that the client updates, according to the character data in the received file, a corresponding character.