Glitch Text Generator
Type a word and get it back corrupted — g̯̅ḷ̅ī̩ť̯c͉̽h̦̅ — with random Unicode combining marks stacked above, through and below every letter. Choose an intensity from 1 to 5, press Regenerate until the glitch looks right, and copy it. The result is plain text, so it pastes wherever text does. Free, no sign-up.
Glitched text
Your result will appear here
How to Use the Glitch Text Generator
- Type or paste your text. The glitched version appears below as you type.
- Set the intensity. The slider runs from 1 (a light haze) to 5 (a heavy stack of marks). Start low: a small amount reads as glitchy, a lot reads as a black smear.
- Press Regenerate. The marks are random, so each press gives a different arrangement of the same text. Keep pressing until you like it.
- Copy the result and paste it into your post, bio or message. Check it on the platform before you rely on it.
How the Effect Is Built
Glitch text is made entirely from combining marks in the Combining Diacritical Marks block (U+0300–U+036F). A combining mark has no width of its own and is drawn on the character before it; the same mechanism puts the accent on a decomposed é. Pile on enough of them and the result looks corrupted. The tool draws from three sets:
| Placement | Marks available | Added when |
|---|---|---|
| Above the letter | 34 marks, including grave, acute, tilde, dot above and small combining letters | Always — between 1 and the intensity level |
| Through the letter | 5 overlay marks, U+0334–U+0338 (tilde, short stroke, long stroke, solidus overlays) | From intensity 3 — exactly one |
| Below the letter | 40 marks, including dots, hooks, bridges and tildes below | Always — between 1 and the intensity level |
Spaces and line breaks are left clean. That sets the cost of each level:
| Intensity | Marks per letter | Average |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 2–4 | 3 |
| 3 | 3–7 | 5 |
| 4 | 3–9 | 6 |
| 5 | 3–11 | 7 |
At intensity 1, "glitch" becomes g̯̅ḷ̅ī̩ť̯c͉̽h̦̅: six letters, each with one mark above and one below, which is 18 code points in all. At intensity 5 the same word needs roughly 48 code points, and often more. The marks are drawn from a seeded random generator, which is why the glitch does not shuffle by itself as you type: it changes when you press Regenerate, and also when you move the slider, since the number of marks drawn per letter changes.
Limits: Character Counts, Layout and Software That Cleans Up
- Character limits. Every mark counts as a code point and takes 2 bytes in UTF-8. A 280-character post allows only about 35 letters at intensity 5 if the platform counts code points.
- Overflow. Marks above and below spill into neighbouring lines, covering text or clipping at the edge of a box. That is the effect, but it can hide the line above and below.
- Stripping and rejection. Some platforms cap combining marks, remove them, or reject them in usernames. Unicode also defines a Stream-Safe Text Format for software that wants to bound such sequences, with no more than 30 combining marks in a row; this tool stays well under that, at 11 at most.
- Search and spell check. A glitched word does not match the plain word and is flagged by spell checkers.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Random, messy marks all over the letters | This page |
| One clean line through each letter | Strikethrough Text Generator |
| One clean line under each letter | Underline Text Generator |
| A gothic look without the corruption | Old English Text Generator |
| To see which marks are in a piece of text | Unicode Character Inspector |
A note on accessibility
Glitch text is not meant to be read. A screen reader may try to announce every mark, producing long unintelligible output, or skip the letters altogether. Spell check, translation and search cannot read it, and heavy Zalgo can make the text above and below it unreadable for everyone. Keep it for a short decorative word and never for content anyone has to understand.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Zalgo or glitch text?
- Text with many Unicode combining marks stacked above, through and below each letter, so it looks corrupted or haunted. The name "Zalgo" comes from an internet horror meme. The letters underneath are still ordinary letters; the marks are what you see.
- What does the intensity slider do?
- It sets the maximum number of random marks added above and below each letter, from 1 to 5, and from level 3 it also adds one mark through the middle. Level 1 always adds exactly two marks per letter; level 5 adds between three and eleven.
- Why does the text change when I press Regenerate?
- The marks are chosen at random for each letter. Regenerate re-rolls them using a new seed, so you can try arrangements until you like one. The pattern does not shuffle by itself while you type.
- How do I remove glitch text or Zalgo marks?
- Delete the combining marks, which all sit in U+0300–U+0366 here. In an editor with regex find and replace, search for
[\u0300-\u036f]and replace it with nothing. This also removes legitimate accents on decomposed letters, so check the result. - Why does my glitch text look different on another site?
- Platforms and fonts draw stacked marks differently: some clip them, some let them overlap other lines and some remove them. There is no way to control that from the text, so preview it where you will post.
- Is Zalgo text allowed on social media?
- It usually works in bios and posts, but platforms may trim or filter heavy combining marks and often reject them in usernames. Moderation systems can also flag it, so use a lower intensity if it is being stripped.