Old English Text Generator
Type a word, a name or a line and get it back in gothic blackletter — 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔨 or 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖇𝖔𝖑𝖉 𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓 — the lettering of newspaper mastheads, diplomas and tattoo flash. Both styles are Unicode characters, so the result is plain text you can paste into a bio, a post or a message. Free, no sign-up.
Old English (Fraktur)
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Bold Old English (bold Fraktur)
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A note on accessibility
Unicode Fraktur is not real formatting — it substitutes mathematical symbols that merely look like styled letters. Screen readers may announce each one as a mathematical symbol or skip it, and search and spell-check will not recognize the words. Use it for decoration, not for essential content.
How to Use the Old English Text Generator
- Type or paste your text. The Fraktur and bold Fraktur versions appear below as you type.
- Pick a weight. Fraktur (𝔞𝔟𝔠) has the thin, angular strokes of the classic look; bold Fraktur (𝖆𝖇𝖈) is heavier and stays legible at small sizes.
- Copy the one you want. Press Copy and paste it wherever plain text is accepted.
- Check capitals and digits. Letters convert, but numbers do not — they stay in your ordinary font.
"Old English" Lettering Is Blackletter, Not Old English
The name causes confusion. Old English the language — the English of Beowulf, spoken before about 1150 — was written in an Insular script that used extra letters such as þ, ð and æ. The angular, spiky letterforms most people mean when they say "Old English font", like the lettering of a newspaper nameplate or the typeface called Old English Text MT, are blackletter, a style of writing used across western Europe in the later Middle Ages and for printing afterwards. Fraktur is the blackletter style that was long used to print German, and it is the alphabet Unicode encodes.
So this tool gives you the gothic look. It will not turn modern English into the language of Beowulf, and it does not add þ, ð or æ — type those yourself if you need them; they pass through unchanged.
The Two Styles and the Five Missing Capitals
| Style | Sample | Unicode range | Gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fraktur | 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔇𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔶 ℭ𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔠𝔩𝔢 | U+1D504 (A), U+1D51E (a) | Five capitals: C, H, I, R, Z |
| Bold Fraktur | 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖞 𝕮𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖑𝖊 | U+1D56C (A), U+1D586 (a) | None |
Both live in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block (U+1D400–U+1D7FF). Five Fraktur capitals were encoded earlier, in Letterlike Symbols, under the name BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL: ℭ (U+212D), ℌ (U+210C), ℑ (U+2111), ℜ (U+211C) and ℨ (U+2128). Unicode did not encode them a second time, so their positions in the newer block are empty. The generator substitutes the older characters: "Hail Zeus, Chief Ruler" becomes ℌ𝔞𝔦𝔩 ℨ𝔢𝔲𝔰, ℭ𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔣 ℜ𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔯, where ℌ, ℨ, ℭ and ℜ come from the older block. Bold Fraktur was added complete, so "Gothic Ink" is 𝕲𝖔𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖈 𝕴𝖓𝖐 with every capital from one block. Some fonts draw the older five in a slightly different design.
Only the 26 basic Latin letters are converted. Unicode has no Fraktur digits, so "Gothic Ink 1066" in Fraktur is 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔠 ℑ𝔫𝔨 1066 — the number is unchanged. Accented letters, punctuation, spaces and emoji pass through as they are.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Gothic blackletter | This page |
| Pen-drawn script, 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 | Cursive Text Generator |
| Plain heavy or slanted letters | Bold Text Generator |
| Letters that read as ordinary text to every device | A real blackletter font in your editor, such as UnifrakturCook, instead of Unicode letters |
Where It Works and What to Watch For
Blackletter is hard to read at length: the capitals especially can resemble each other, which is why it is used for short things — a name, a masthead, a headline. Use it for the same here: a username display, a bio line, a caption. For a tattoo design, a logo or a printed invitation, take the words to a designer or set them in a real blackletter font so you control spacing and every letterform. Do not use it for usernames, email addresses or anything a person has to type back, because nobody can type these characters from a keyboard.
A note on accessibility
These letters are mathematical symbols, not formatting. A screen reader may announce each one by its Unicode name ("mathematical Fraktur small a"), read the word letter by letter or skip it, and search, spell check and translation do not treat it as a word. Use it for decoration only and keep anything important in plain text.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between Old English, blackletter and Fraktur?
- Old English is the language of Beowulf. Blackletter is the family of angular medieval and early-printing scripts that people usually mean by an "Old English font". Fraktur is one blackletter style, historically used for German, and the one Unicode includes as a letter set.
- How do I get Old English text for a bio or username?
- Type your text above, copy the Fraktur or bold Fraktur result and paste it into the field. If the site restricts usernames to letters, numbers and underscores it will reject these characters, but display names and bios usually accept them.
- Is this the same as the Old English Text MT font?
- No. That is a typeface you install and apply to ordinary letters. This tool swaps each letter for a different Unicode character that looks gothic, so it works as plain text without any font. The two look alike but are different things.
- Why do some capitals look different from the others?
- C, H, I, R and Z in the Fraktur style come from the older Letterlike Symbols block, because Unicode never encoded them twice. Some fonts draw them with a slightly different weight. Bold Fraktur has no such capitals.
- Can I use these letters for a tattoo?
- You can use them to preview words, but a tattoo artist will work from a font or a hand-drawn design, not from Unicode characters. Different blackletter fonts vary a lot, so ask for the lettering to be drawn out before it is applied.
- Why do I see empty boxes instead of letters?
- The device has no font that covers the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block. Most phones and computers do, but older systems may not. Send a screenshot instead if the reader's device is unknown.