Font Generator Best Practices for Accessibility and Readability

By the FontGen team Updated 2 min read

Styled Unicode text can be hard to read and is often read badly by screen readers. Choose high-contrast, legible styles, keep fancy text short, leave important information in plain text, and check how it looks on different devices and platforms.

Illustration of readable and accessible font choices

Styled text from a font generator is fun, but it isn't normal text. Each letter is swapped for a look-alike Unicode character, and that changes how people, screen readers and search engines deal with it. These habits keep it readable for everyone.

Keep styled text short

A styled name or a single heading line reads fine. A whole paragraph in 𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓽 is tiring to read and easy to skip. Use a style to mark one thing, such as a name, a title or a call to action, and write the rest normally.

Choose styles people can actually read

Bold, italic and plain serif styles stay close to normal letter shapes, so they're easy to read at small sizes. Heavily decorated, gothic, upside-down or "zalgo" styles are harder, especially on a phone. If you have to look twice to read your own text, your audience will too.

Leave important information in plain text

Screen readers don't treat 𝐁𝐨π₯𝐝 as a styled word. Many read it letter by letter ("mathematical bold capital B…") or skip it entirely. Search engines and in-app search may not match it to the normal word either. So keep these in plain text:

  • Your name or brand name, if you want people to find it
  • Contact details, prices, dates and links
  • Hashtags, which won't work with styled letters
  • Anything someone might need to copy, search for or hear read aloud

Don't let style carry the meaning

If a word is styled to show it's important, make sure the sentence still makes sense without the style. Someone using a screen reader, or an app that can't display the characters, should still get the message.

Check how it looks elsewhere

The app you paste into decides which font draws the characters. Something that looks right on your phone can show up as empty boxes on an older device or in another app. Before you commit to a styled bio or username, look at it on a second device, and if a style shows as boxes, switch to a simpler one.

A quick checklist

  • Is the styled part short?
  • Can you read it at a glance on a phone?
  • Is everything important also in plain text?
  • Does it display correctly on another device?

If all four are yes, go ahead. You'll find plenty of readable styles on the font generator.