What the glitch text converter does
Glitch text looks like something went wrong with the screen: letters are scratched, smeared or buried under stray marks. It suits horror posts, game names, music releases, error-message jokes and anything meant to feel unstable.
This converter shows nine different glitch patterns for your text at once. Instead of tuning one effect, you compare the patterns, pick a strength and copy the one that fits.
How to use it
- Type into the Your text box. All nine presets update as you type.
- Choose a Strength: Low, Medium or High. Medium is the default.
- Press New variation to reroll every preset with fresh random marks.
- Press Copy next to the preset you want and paste it into your app.
The nine presets
- Scratched draws a stroke or slash through the middle of each letter. Nothing spills above or below, so it stays tidy.
- Light glitch adds a single mark above or below some of the letters. The text stays easy to read. Higher strength marks more letters.
- Rising stacks marks above every letter, like static climbing off the text.
- Dripping hangs marks below every letter.
- Build up starts clean and gets heavier towards the last letter.
- Fade out does the opposite: the first letters are buried and the end is clean.
- Wave switches letter by letter between marks above and marks below.
- Static noise scratches some letters and drops shade blocks such as ░, ▒ and ▓ between others, like a weak signal.
- Meltdown piles marks above, through and below every letter.
Here is the word “error” at Low strength, taken from one run of the converter. Your own results will differ because the marks are random.
| Preset | error |
|---|---|
| Scratched | e̴r̶r̷o̵r̵ |
| Light glitch | e̱rrͪor |
| Rising | ër̈́rͪoͬͦr̋ |
| Dripping | e͔r̰̮r̖ọr͍̹͍ |
| Build up | err̘̉o̟̐̌r̳̙̣̭ |
| Fade out | e͗̏̚r̞͎͌̂r̿̎o͌r |
| Wave | e̚r͉rͣo̰̮r͐͆ |
| Static noise | erro̵r̶ |
And a longer line, “no signal”, with Static noise at Low strength: n̵o̶ s̵i̴▓gnal̶
How glitch text works
Unicode has a group of combining marks: accents, dots, tildes and strokes that attach to the character before them. That is how an e followed by an acute accent shows as é. Unicode puts no limit on how many marks one letter can carry, so stacking several makes them pile up and overlap.
Each preset draws marks from three pools, depending on where they sit: above the letter, through its middle or below it. The preset decides which pools to use and how many marks each letter gets. Build up and Fade out change the count along the length of your text. Wave alternates the pool from one letter to the next. Static noise is the only preset that adds visible characters of its own, the shade blocks.
Everything runs in your browser and your text never leaves the page.
Glitch text or cursed text?
This site has two tools built on the same idea.
Pick the cursed text generator when you know the effect you want and want to tune it. It gives you one output, a slider from 1 to 10 and switches for marks above, through and below.
Pick this glitch converter when you want to browse. You get nine patterns at once, including shapes the slider cannot make, and three simple strength levels.
Tips and limits
- Start with Low. Heavy marks overflow onto the lines above and below and can cover other people’s messages. Low strength is often enough.
- Apps trim tall text. Bios, usernames and notifications may cut off marks that stick out of the line. Scratched and Static noise stay closest to the line.
- Some apps strip the marks. A few platforms remove combining characters from names, which leaves plain text behind.
- Screen readers cannot read it. Each mark may be announced separately, or the text may be skipped entirely. Never put essential information in glitch text.
- Search will not match it. Glitched words do not match a normal search. Keep a plain version of names and hashtags.
- Character limits fill fast. Every mark is a character. A short word at High strength can use dozens of characters.
Related tools
For a cleaner damaged look, the slash text generator puts a single slash through each letter. To clean glitched text back to normal letters, paste it into the Unicode to text converter.