Why Fancy Text Shows Boxes
Fancy text shows boxes when the device that displays it has no font with a drawing for those characters. The text itself is not broken. The characters arrived, but the screen cannot draw them, so it draws a box in their place.
This guide explains what the box is, why your friend sees boxes when you do not, which fancy styles are the safest, and what to do about it.
What does the empty box mean?
The box is the sign a font shows for a character that it cannot draw. Type designers call the drawing of a character a glyph, and the box is the glyph for "not found". Its nickname is tofu, because it looks like a small block of tofu.
The box is there on purpose. The OpenType specification, published by Microsoft, says that this special glyph gives the user feedback that a glyph was not found in the font. Without it, a missing character would look like a space and nobody would notice.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| An empty rectangle | The font has no glyph for this character |
| A rectangle with a question mark | The same, in another font |
| A rectangle with an X | The same, in another font |
These three shapes are the ones the specification recommends, which is why the box looks a little different from device to device.
Why does fancy text show boxes on some devices?
Each device has its own set of fonts, and no font contains every character. The Unicode Consortium puts it simply in its FAQ: to display a character, you must have a font that contains the glyph for it.
- You copy a fancy word. What you copy is a row of Unicode characters, not a picture.
- The other person's device receives the same characters.
- Their device looks in its fonts for a glyph for each character.
- If no font has one, the device draws the box.
So the same message can look perfect on your phone and broken on another one. An old phone or an old computer has fewer fonts and shows more boxes.
The background is in the guide on how fancy text works.
Which fancy text styles are the safest?
As a rule, the longer a character has been part of Unicode, the more fonts contain it. The styles of our generator come from blocks of different ages.
| Style | Where the characters come from | Risk of boxes |
|---|---|---|
| Strikethrough, Underline | Normal letters plus a combining mark | Low. The letters always show; only the line can be missing or shifted |
| Wide | Fullwidth forms, made for East Asian text | Low |
| Bubble | Circled letters, an old block | Low |
| Bold, Italic, Cursive, Gothic, Double-struck, Monospace | Mathematical alphabets, in Unicode since 2001 | Low on current phones and computers, higher on old devices |
| Small caps, Tiny | Phonetic letters collected from several blocks | Medium. Single letters can be missing |
| Square, Black square, Black bubble | Enclosed letters added around 2010 | Medium. Some phones draw a few of them as coloured emoji |
The table is a guide from the age of the characters, not a test of every device. The only sure check is to look at the text on the device or app where it will be read.
How to fix fancy text that shows boxes
- Choose a more common style. Open the fancy text generator again and take Bold or Italic instead of a rare style.
- Check on a second device. Send the text to yourself and open it on another phone or on a computer before you post it.
- Check inside the app. A name or bio can look right in a chat and wrong in another app, because apps can bring their own fonts.
- Use fewer fancy characters. One decorated word that fails is a small loss. A whole decorated sentence that fails is unreadable.
- Keep important text plain. A name, a price, a date or a link should be in normal letters, which every device can draw.
If you are the reader, you cannot repair the text. An update of the phone's system or of the app can add newer fonts, and until then the sender has to pick another style.
Boxes, question marks and diamonds are not the same
Three different signs are often mixed up. They point to different problems.
| Sign | Problem | Who can fix it |
|---|---|---|
| An empty box | The character arrived, but no font can draw it | The sender, by choosing another style |
| A black diamond with a question mark | The data was damaged or read in the wrong encoding, so the character itself is lost | The website or app that stores the text |
| A plain question mark where a letter should be | A system on the way could not store the character and replaced it | The website or app that stores the text |
With a box, the right character is still there. Copy the box and paste it on a newer device, and the letter appears. With the other two signs, the original character is gone.
Can a font fix the boxes?
Yes, on a computer. Installing a font that contains the missing characters makes them appear. Google's Noto font family was made for this purpose and, according to Google Fonts, covers more than 1,000 languages and over 150 writing systems.
This helps only on your own device. You cannot install a font on the phone of the person who reads your bio, so for text that other people will read, a safe style is the only real fix.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do I see boxes instead of letters?
- Your device has no font that can draw those characters. The text is intact, but the screen shows a box for each character it cannot draw.
- Why can I see the fancy text when my friend cannot?
- Your devices have different fonts. Newer systems contain more characters than older ones.
- Which fancy style works on the most devices?
- Styles made of old, common characters, such as Bold and Italic, and styles that only add a line to normal letters, such as Strikethrough.
- What is tofu in text?
- Tofu is the nickname for the small empty box that a font shows in place of a character it cannot draw.
- Does the box mean the text is damaged?
- No. The characters are still there. On a device with the right font, the same text shows correctly.