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Old English Font Generator

The classic newspaper-masthead letters as copy-and-paste Unicode: light fraktur, bold fraktur, and a framed version.

By Nethanel Bar, Co-founder & CEO

Last updated

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What is an Old English font, and how does the generator make one?

Despite the name, Old English lettering has nothing to do with the language of Beowulf: it is the blackletter typeface family, called Old English in the English-speaking world because it was the style of early English printing, and used ever since for mastheads, certificates, beer labels and tattoos. Unicode encodes two of these alphabets - Fraktur (๐”„๐”…โ„ญ) and Bold Fraktur (๐•ฌ๐•ญ๐•ฎ) - and an Old English font generator swaps A-Z for them.

The lighter Fraktur is pinned first here: it is the closer match to the classic Old English Text typeface, with its thin hairlines. Bold Fraktur is the heavier cut for a name that has to survive a small avatar. Wings adds the ๊ง ๊ง‚ frame.

Nothing is uploaded; the letters are swapped in your browser as you type.

What to know about Old English Unicode letters

  • The light Fraktur capitals C, H, I, R and Z (โ„ญ โ„Œ โ„‘ โ„œ โ„จ) are stored in the Letterlike Symbols block, so a few apps draw them from a second font at a slightly different weight.
  • Blackletter lowercase is tall and tight; a line of it takes more vertical space than plain text and less horizontal space.
  • There are no fraktur digits or punctuation in Unicode; those stay as typed.
  • It is decoration to a screen reader and a search engine alike - keep the plain name in your profile text too.
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Old English text examples

A masthead-style name

Input

Weekly Update

Fraktur

๐”š๐”ข๐”ข๐”จ๐”ฉ๐”ถ ๐”˜๐”ญ๐”ก๐”ž๐”ฑ๐”ข

Bold Fraktur

๐–‚๐–Š๐–Š๐–๐–‘๐–ž ๐–€๐–•๐–‰๐–†๐–™๐–Š

The light cut is the newspaper look; the bold one carries better as a profile name.

A date line, the way a certificate writes it

Input

Anno Domini

Fraktur

๐”„๐”ซ๐”ซ๐”ฌ ๐”‡๐”ฌ๐”ช๐”ฆ๐”ซ๐”ฆ

With wings

๊ง Anno Domini ๊ง‚

Paste the Fraktur output back into the input to frame it with ๊ง ๊ง‚ - two copies, one line.

Common Old English text mistakes

  • Expecting the letters to be historical English. It is a typeface style; the spelling stays modern.
  • Setting a long quotation in blackletter on a phone; keep it to a name or a heading.
  • Trying to use it in a handle or an email address - plain letters only there.

Old English font generator FAQ

Is Old English lettering the same as gothic?
Yes, in everyday use: both names refer to blackletter. Old English usually means the lighter, more calligraphic cut; gothic often means the heavier one. This page pins the light Fraktur first, the gothic page pins the bold one.
Can I copy Old English letters into Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Yes. They paste as characters and display in any font that includes the Mathematical Alphanumerics block, which every modern system font does. Spell-check will not recognise the words, though.
Why do the letters C, H, I, R and Z look a little different?
Those five Old English capitals are encoded in Unicode's Letterlike Symbols block rather than in the fraktur range, and some fonts render that block with a different design. The bold cut has no such split.
Does the Old English font work for numbers and dates?
Letters only. Unicode has no blackletter digits, so a date keeps plain numerals - which is also how historical certificates were usually set.

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