How upside down text works
There is no upside-down font you can switch on in a bio or a chat. This upside down text generator works with characters instead. The Unicode standard, which lists every character that phones and computers can show, contains dozens of letters that look like ordinary Latin letters turned by 180 degrees. Many of them belong to the IPA Extensions block, letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet such as ɐ, which the Unicode Character Database names "Latin small letter turned a". Others come from blocks for math symbols, letterlike symbols and other alphabets.
To flip text, the tool takes each character, swaps it for its upside-down look-alike and then reverses the order of the whole text. Read the result with your phone turned around and it says what you typed. Because the result is made of characters and not of formatting, it survives copy and paste into almost any text field.
Three ways to flip text
- Upside down turns the text by 180 degrees: turned characters in reverse order. "Hello" becomes oꞁꞁǝH. With several lines, the last line comes first, as it would on a turned page.
- Backwards only reverses the order, so "Hello" becomes olleH. Letters stay upright, which makes it easy to read in a mirror. Emoji and accented letters stay whole.
- Flipped letters turns each character but keeps the order, so "Hello" becomes Hǝꞁꞁo. It reads left to right and looks like letters hanging from the line.
Turn back to normal does the reverse for whichever style you pick. Paste flipped text, and the tool maps each turned character to its plain letter and puts the order right again. It also knows a few look-alikes that other generators use, such as ɟ for f, ƃ for g and ⊥ for T, so most upside-down text from elsewhere can be read too.
Which characters it uses
Where Unicode has a character that is named as a turned letter, the tool uses it. Where it has none, the tool picks the closest look-alike. Letters that look the same when turned, like o, s, x, z, H, I, N, O, S, X, Z and the digits 0 and 8, stay as they are, and b, d, n, p, q, u, 6 and 9 simply swap with each other. All names below are from the Unicode code charts.
| Plain | Upside down | Code point | Unicode name |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | ɐ | U+0250 | Latin small letter turned a |
| c | ɔ | U+0254 | Latin small letter open o |
| e | ǝ | U+01DD | Latin small letter turned e |
| f | ⅎ | U+214E | turned small f |
| g | ᵷ | U+1D77 | Latin small letter turned g |
| h | ɥ | U+0265 | Latin small letter turned h |
| i | ᴉ | U+1D09 | Latin small letter turned i |
| j | ɾ | U+027E | Latin small letter r with fishhook |
| k | ʞ | U+029E | Latin small letter turned k |
| l | ꞁ | U+A781 | Latin small letter turned l |
| m | ɯ | U+026F | Latin small letter turned m |
| r | ɹ | U+0279 | Latin small letter turned r |
| t | ʇ | U+0287 | Latin small letter turned t |
| v | ʌ | U+028C | Latin small letter turned v |
| w | ʍ | U+028D | Latin small letter turned w |
| y | ʎ | U+028E | Latin small letter turned y |
| A | ∀ | U+2200 | for all |
| B | ꓭ | U+A4ED | Lisu letter gha |
| C | Ɔ | U+0186 | Latin capital letter open o |
| D | ꓷ | U+A4F7 | Lisu letter oe |
| E | Ǝ | U+018E | Latin capital letter reversed e |
| F | Ⅎ | U+2132 | turned capital f |
| G | ⅁ | U+2141 | turned sans-serif capital g |
| J | ſ | U+017F | Latin small letter long s |
| K | Ʞ | U+A7B0 | Latin capital letter turned k |
| L | ⅂ | U+2142 | turned sans-serif capital l |
| M | Ɯ | U+019C | Latin capital letter turned m |
| P | Ԁ | U+0500 | Cyrillic capital letter komi de |
| R | ᴚ | U+1D1A | Latin letter small capital turned r |
| T | Ʇ | U+A7B1 | Latin capital letter turned t |
| U | ∩ | U+2229 | intersection |
| V | Ʌ | U+0245 | Latin capital letter turned v |
| Y | ⅄ | U+2144 | turned sans-serif capital y |
| 1 | Ɩ | U+0196 | Latin capital letter iota |
| 2 | ↊ | U+218A | turned digit two |
| 3 | ↋ | U+218B | turned digit three |
| 4 | ㄣ | U+3123 | Bopomofo letter en |
| 5 | ϛ | U+03DB | Greek small letter stigma |
| 7 | ㄥ | U+3125 | Bopomofo letter eng |
| . | ˙ | U+02D9 | dot above |
| ? | ¿ | U+00BF | inverted question mark |
| ! | ¡ | U+00A1 | inverted exclamation mark |
| & | ⅋ | U+214B | turned ampersand |
| ; | ⸵ | U+2E35 | turned semicolon |
| _ | ‾ | U+203E | overline |
A few choices are compromises. A turned capital B or D looks like the letter mirrored, and Unicode has no reversed B, so the tool uses two letters of the Lisu alphabet that look like it. For J it uses the long s (ſ), and the digits 4 and 7 borrow two letters from the Bopomofo block. The capital Q, the at sign and backticks have no convincing match and stay as they are; the tool lists every character it could not turn below the result, so you know what to fix by hand. Accented letters keep their accent on the turned letter.
Before you post it
Upside-down text looks like writing, but it is a string of unusual characters, and that has side effects:
- Screen readers: people who listen to the web may hear symbol names or nothing at all. The digital accessibility guides of Texas Tech University and Florida State University both ask people to avoid fancy Unicode text for this reason. Keep names, links and anything people must understand in normal letters.
- Search: a word written with turned characters is made of different characters, so a search that compares characters will not match it to the plain word. Do not flip your name or words people should find.
- Missing characters: when a device has no font for a character, it shows an empty box. Characters added to Unicode later, like the Lisu letters (Unicode 5.2) and the turned digits 2 and 3 (Unicode 8.0), are the most likely to be missing. Paste the result into the app first and look at it on the phone you post from.
For bold, italic, cursive and bubble letters, the fancy text generator uses the same idea with other Unicode alphabets. To check how long a bio or caption is, paste it into the character counter.
How to use the upside down text generator
- 1Type or paste your text into the box. The result updates as you type.
- 2Pick a style: Upside down to turn the whole text, Backwards to reverse it, or Flipped letters to turn the letters in place.
- 3Press Copy and paste the result into your bio, post or message. Check the list below the result for characters that stayed the same.
- 4To read upside-down text, choose Turn back to normal and paste it in.
Frequently asked questions
How does upside down text work?
Unicode, the standard list of characters every phone and computer uses, contains letters that look like Latin letters turned around. Many of them come from phonetic alphabets, such as the turned a (ɐ) and the turned e (ǝ). The tool swaps each letter for its turned look-alike and then reverses the order, so the text reads correctly when you turn your screen around.
Can I paste upside down text into Instagram, TikTok or Discord?
The result is ordinary Unicode text, not an image or a font, so it pastes like any other text wherever an app accepts free text and does not filter characters: bios, captions, comments, posts and chat messages. Fields that only allow plain letters and digits will refuse it. Paste it in and check the preview before you post.
Why do some characters stay the same?
Not every character has an upside-down look-alike. Letters like o, s, x, z, H, N and the digits 0 and 8 look the same when you turn them, so they stay on purpose. Others, such as Q and @, have no good match in Unicode, so the tool keeps them and lists them below the result.
Why do I see boxes instead of letters?
The device showing the text has no font with that character. The capital B and D come from the Lisu block, which arrived in Unicode 5.2, and the turned 2 and 3 only in Unicode 8.0, so fonts on older devices may not have them. Check the result on the phone or app where you plan to post it.
Is upside down text bad for accessibility?
It can be. Screen readers may skip these characters or read them out as symbol names, so people who listen to the web may miss the message. Accessibility guides from Texas Tech University and Florida State University advise against fancy Unicode text for that reason. Use it for a short joke or decoration and keep anything important in normal letters.
How do I turn upside down text back to normal?
Choose Turn back to normal and paste the upside-down text into the box. The tool maps every turned character back to its plain letter and puts the order right. It also understands the look-alikes that other upside down text generators often use, such as ɟ for f and ƃ for g.