...Now struggling with adding an icon from Font Awsome. :-) ...
Alternatively, you can use a unicode icon, which is most efficient anyway (because it already exists at the client's browser). The 6-digit versions are usually in full color. 🎥
In order from best to worst:
1. Unicode icons (best--no shipping charge)
2. Fonts (costs a little bandwidth to send them)
3. Base64 encoded icon (very colorful icon is too big, but 16-color icon is okay)
4. Icon files (worst and slowest, because each file makes a separate trip).
Instead of storing the template as an ANSI encoded file, you can use UTF-8, which is editable with Notepad++ open source editor; And, a UTF-8 can store emoji's so much easier, just copy and paste from
https://emojipedia.org/ Microsoft Notepad won't do; so, you'd need this:
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ (click the Encoding menu) and save your icons directly in the template. 😺