Gothic Font Generator (Fraktur blackletter Unicode text to copy and paste)

Understanding the gothic font generator — concept and principle

"Gothic" lettering here means blackletter, the angular script of medieval manuscripts and old German Fraktur printing. This generator rewrites Latin letters with Unicode's Fraktur characters so the look survives copy and paste into bios, captions and messages, in regular and bold Fraktur. It is not the sans-serif typeface that Korean and Japanese users also call Gothic.

How it is calculated

For each letter:

• Fraktur capital A = U+1D504, small a = U+1D51E; bold Fraktur capital A = U+1D56C; the alphabet follows in order
• Five Fraktur capitals come from the earlier Letterlike Symbols block: ℭ (U+212D), ℌ (U+210C), ℑ (U+2111), ℜ (U+211C), ℨ (U+2128)
• Digits, accented letters, Hangul and punctuation stay as typed
• UTF-16 length: 2 units per mathematical letter, 1 for the Letterlike capitals

The principle

Mathematicians use Fraktur letters as distinct symbols, for example for ideals and Lie algebras, so Unicode encodes complete Fraktur alphabets in its Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block. Because they are separate characters, the blackletter look is preserved wherever a font supports them. A few Fraktur capitals were encoded earlier for maths and physics, such as ℜ for "real part", so the newer block leaves holes there, and the generator uses the older characters to fill them.

Worked example

Default input: "Old English Pub".

1. O, E and P are not among the five gap letters, so each maps to the mathematical block: O → 𝔒, E → 𝔈, P → 𝔓.
2. Fraktur: 𝔒𝔩𝔡 𝔈𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔓𝔲𝔟.
3. Bold Fraktur: 𝕺𝖑𝖉 𝕰𝖓𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕻𝖚𝖇.
4. Letters restyled = 13; characters left as typed = 2 (the spaces).
5. UTF-16 length = 13 × 2 + 2 = 28.

How to read the result

Blackletter is striking for short headings, logos for fun projects or themed posts, but it is hard to read in long passages. Some Fraktur capitals look quite unlike modern letters, so test whether readers recognise words. Screen readers and search may treat these characters poorly, so keep key information in plain text.

Common mistakes

• Expecting digits to change; Unicode has no Fraktur digits.
• Confusing blackletter "Gothic" with the East Asian sans-serif "Gothic" typeface.
• Using it for whole paragraphs, which harms readability and accessibility.
• Assuming the five gap letters will look identical to the rest in every font.

Frequently asked questions

Why does "Gothic" mean different styles?

In Western typography it means blackletter; in Korea and Japan it names sans-serif typefaces.

Why do C, H, I, R and Z look different sometimes?

They come from the older Letterlike Symbols block and may use a different font design.

Can I write Korean in Fraktur?

No. Unicode has no Fraktur Hangul.

Does this change my font?

No. It substitutes different Unicode characters.

Sources: The Unicode Standard 15.1, Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block (Fraktur and bold Fraktur) and Letterlike Symbols block (black-letter capitals C, H, I, R, Z) · Unicode Technical Report #25, "Unicode Support for Mathematics"