Bubble font generator

“Bubble font” covers three different things, and each one is made in its own way.

Instagram and Facebook text fields can't load fonts, so only the first kind can go straight into a bio or a comment. The other two have to become a picture first, such as a Story, a Reel cover or a post graphic. If you'd like a softer, rounder feel without the rings, Outline (𝕓𝕦𝕓𝕓𝕝𝕖) and Wide (ｂｕｂｂｌｅ) are the nearest styles you can paste.

Unicode only circles a short list of characters: the 26 basic letters in both cases, the digits, and a selection of Japanese, Chinese and Korean characters, such as ㋐ and ㉠. Accented letters have no circled versions, so the generator leaves them alone: “café” comes out as ⓒⓐⓕé and “naïve” as ⓝⓐïⓥⓔ, with the odd letter sitting uncircled in the middle.

Most of the world's scripts get no circles at all. There are no circled Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Arabic, Greek or Cyrillic letters, so Hindi, Bengali or Russian words can't become bubble characters. Unicode does have a combining enclosing circle, U+20DD, which can follow any character, but it rarely looks right: depending on the font, the ring sits off-centre, comes out too small or overlaps the next letter.

Tip: For bubble lettering in Hindi, Marathi or another language written in Devanagari, set the words in Modak, a free puffy font that covers the script, and post them as an image.

When bubble letters need to be big, thick and printable, use a real font. These free display fonts on Google Fonts all have the rounded, inflated look people mean by bubble font:

• Chewy: bouncy, slightly uneven letters with a cartoon feel. Good for party invitations and playful signs.
• Bubblegum Sans: soft, rounded letters that stay easy to read across a longer phrase.
• Fredoka: a rounded sans serif with several weights, so the boldest works for headings and the lighter ones for smaller text.
• Titan One: heavy, chunky letters that suit short words on posters and stickers.
• Modak: about as fat as a font gets, with letters that nearly run into each other, in both Latin and Devanagari.

On a computer, download the font and install it, and it appears in Word and most other apps. Cricut Design Space lists installed fonts among its system fonts, though you may need to restart it first. Google Docs can add many Google Fonts through More fonts in the font menu, with nothing to install.

The glossy, inflated lettering on Reel covers and Story graphics is a puffy font plus a couple of effects, and most design apps, free ones included, can produce it:

1. Type one or two words in a heavy rounded font, such as Titan One or Modak, and make them large.
2. Add a thick outline in a darker shade of the letter colour, so each word reads as one solid shape.
3. Add a soft drop shadow below and to one side to lift the letters off the background.
4. If the app offers a gradient fill, run it from light at the top to darker at the bottom, which makes flat letters look rounded.
5. Export the result as an image and use it in a post, a Story or a Reel cover.

Tip: Words inside an image can't be searched, and screen readers can't be relied on to read them unless you add alt text, so repeat the words in your caption as well.