Getting a ? when trying to display a UTF-8 check mark in the generated PDF File

[SideLoeb]

I have been trying to display a check mark ("\u2713") in  the jasper report pdf generated file but it shows up as a "?"  (all of my UTF-8 symbols  appear as the ?).     In the <TexElement> the fontName is set to "DejaVu Sans and pdfEcoding is  Cp1250.    Some of the code is show below and I using JasperStuido 6.19

 

 

 

					<property name="net.sf.jasperreports.default.pdf.encoding" value="Cp1250"/>			

							<textField>
								<reportElement x="0" y="0" width="80" height="40" uuid="5decf990-0f79-47e4-aff95b31cbb30d79"/>
								<textElement textAlignment="Center" verticalAlignment="Middle">
									<font size="9" fontName="DejaVu San" pdfEncoding="Cp1250"/>
								</textElement>
								<textFieldExpression><![CDATA[$F{StatusChar}]]></textFieldExpression>
							</textField>

                         

StatusChar values are "\u2713", "\u25CF", "\u274C",  or "\u25B4"

I welcome any input how to solve this.