Text Border Generator
Wrap text in a box drawn with ASCII or Unicode characters, with alignment, padding, a title in the border and automatic wrapping to a chosen width.
Last reviewed by the Radiatus Cloud team
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A box is the plain text equivalent of a callout
Terminal programs, README files, commit messages, code comments and log output have no formatting. A box drawn with characters is the only way to make a warning, a banner or a summary stand out, and it works identically everywhere the text is displayed in a fixed width font. Command line tools have used boxed output for decades for exactly this reason, and it still renders correctly when the same text is pasted into a chat message or an issue.
Character width decides whether it lines up
The right hand border aligns only if every line is measured correctly. East Asian characters and most emoji occupy two columns in a terminal while counting as one character in a string. Combining accents occupy none. A box built by counting string length breaks the moment any of these appear, producing a ragged right edge that looks like a bug because it is one.
Style and compatibility
ASCII boxes work in every font and terminal including ones with no Unicode support at all. Box drawing characters look considerably better and are supported almost universally now. Heavy and double line variants add emphasis, and a title embedded in the top border is a compact way to label a box without spending a line on a heading.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which border characters are safest?
Plus, minus and pipe, which exist in every character set and font. Unicode box drawing characters look far better and are supported almost everywhere now, but a terminal that substitutes a fallback glyph of a different width will produce a ragged edge.
Why does my box not line up?
Almost always because a line contains characters wider than one column. East Asian characters and most emoji occupy two terminal columns while counting as one string character, so a box built from string length is too narrow for them.
Can I put a title in the border?
Yes. A title embedded in the top border labels the box without spending a line on a heading, which matters when the box is short. It is truncated if it is wider than the box.
What width should I use?
80 columns or less for terminal output, since that is the width most terminals default to and the width that survives being quoted in an email or a chat message. Wider boxes wrap and lose their shape entirely.
Does this work in a proportional font?
No. Character drawn boxes depend on every character occupying the same width, so they belong in code blocks, terminals and plain text files rather than in a word processed document.
Privacy & Security
Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
How to Use
Paste text and choose a border style to draw a box around it.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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Text to Speech Player
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Speech to Text Transcriber
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