The guide
Glitch Text Maker โ Add Controlled Noise Without the Zalgo Mess
A glitch text maker adds a small, controlled number of Unicode marks to each letter, so your words look like a signal breaking up (sฬiอญแธกnal lอoอฏst) while they stay readable. Zalgo piles on dozens of marks per letter until the text bleeds into the lines around it. This tool stops at one to five.
Each mark is a โcombining characterโ. It has no width of its own and draws on top of or under the letter before it. Stack a few and you get the jittery look of a bad video feed.
The noise slider sets how many marks each letter gets. Here is what each level does to the word โErrorโ in the Noise Bars Up style.
How much noise does each level add?
| Level | Marks per letter | โErrorโ becomes | Characters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ยท Faint hum | 1 | Eอฆศrฬศrอ | 10 |
| 2 ยท Light static | 2 | Eอฆฬrฬฬrออฉoอจฬrออง | 15 |
| 3 ยท Signal noise | 3 | Eอฆฬฬศออฉrอจฬอoองฬอฌrอฆฬฬ | 20 |
| 4 ยท Heavy static | 4 | Eอฆฬฬฬrออฉอจฬrอองฬอฌoอฆฬอฌฬrฬอญอฬ | 25 |
| 5 ยท Full meltdown | 5 | Eอฆฬฬฬอrอฉอจฬอองrฬอฌอฆฬฬoอฌฬอญอฬ rฬออฌฬฟอ | 30 |
Five letters, thirty characters at the top level. That multiplier is the thing most people forget, and it matters for every section below.
The styles
Which glitch style should you pick?
Not every style stacks marks. Half of them use other tricks, and those are the safest ones to post anywhere.
- Scan Lines runs a thin strike through each letter: sฬดiฬตgฬถnฬดaฬตlฬถ. It reads like a CRT screen and barely grows the text.
- Pixel Noise drops a shaded block into the word: sigโnal lost. No stacking at all, so it never overlaps the next line.
- Corrupted Letters swaps a few letters for look-alikes from Cyrillic and Greek: ัignal losั. It looks glitched but stays one line tall.
- Noise Bars Up, Down and Both are the stacking styles. Great for a Discord display name at level 1 or 2, risky above that.
The New noise button rerolls which marks land where, without changing the level. Tap it a few times if one letter looks too crowded.
Staying within the rules
Is glitch text safe to use on social apps?
At levels 1 and 2, usually yes. The marks are ordinary Unicode that Instagram, TikTok, X and Discord all accept, and the risk only climbs with the stack, because the same marks are what Zalgo spam is made of.
Discord is where it bites first. Many servers run moderation bots with an anti-Zalgo filter that deletes messages, or renames members, once too many combining marks pile up. Level 3 and above in a nickname is a common way to get renamed to something boring.
- Keep it to one word. Glitch the name or the key word, not the whole bio.
- Stay at level 1โ2 for anything that other people have to read, like a nickname or a post.
- Never use it to hide words from a filter. Platforms treat that as evasion, and it can get an account limited.
The overlap problem
Why does glitch text break line spacing in notifications?
Stacked marks draw outside the normal line box. In a chat window there is usually room, but the notification tray on Android and iOS squeezes two or three lines into a fixed height, so the marks from one line crash into the line above.
You wonโt see this on your own screen. The person receiving a DM from โNฬฬอซฬฬอoอซฬองฬอชvฬอฏฬอฬฬaฬฟฬอฬฬโ at level 5 sees a smudge across their lock screen instead.
Overlaps in the tray
Level 4โ5 stacking styles (Noise Bars Up, Glitch Caps)
Stays on one line
Scan Lines, Pixel Noise, Corrupted Letters, or any style at level 1
The preview cards on this page use a taller line height and clip anything that spills out, so what you see here is a little tidier than a cramped tray.
Before you post
How do you check glitch text is still readable?
Use the White and Dark preview chips above the cards. Thin marks like the macron in แธก almost vanish on a dark background, while heavy stacks turn into a grey blob on white.
Then do the three-second test. Show it to someone who hasnโt seen the original: if they canโt read it out loud in three seconds, drop a level.
- Check both themes. Most people on Discord and X use dark mode.
- Check the smallest size. Comment usernames and tray previews are about 12โ13px, much smaller than these cards.
- Check an older phone. Old Android fonts sometimes draw a mark as a dotted circle.
Accessibility
How do screen readers handle glitch text?
Badly, the more marks you add. Some screen readers skip combining marks, but others read them out one by one (โs, combining macron, iโฆโ), which turns a two-word name into a string of noise.
Corrupted Letters has a different problem. The look-alikes are real Cyrillic and Greek letters, so a reader may pronounce ั and ั as foreign letters or spell the word out.
The fair approach is simple. Use glitch text for decoration, and keep anything people need to understand (a date, a link label, your actual name) in plain letters beside it.
Want the full chaos instead?
The Zalgo generator goes far past level 5, for places where readability doesnโt matter.