Vertical Text (Tategaki) Converter
Runs in your browserNothing is uploadedThis runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Paste text and see it laid out vertically. Besides the on-screen layout you get a text-only version that can be pasted into social posts and a PNG image. Long vowel marks and brackets are switched to their vertical forms.
Input
Longer lines wrap into the next column at this length.
Output
Enter text and the vertical layout and text appear here.
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Why this one
- Three outputs
- A vertical layout on screen, a text-only version that pastes straight into social posts, and a PNG. Different destinations need different forms: text for X, an image for announcing a zine or showing a passage of your own writing, the on-screen layout when you only want to see how the text sits.
- Correct vertical glyphs
- Long vowel marks, brackets and ellipses are replaced with their vertical forms. Stacked as they come, the long vowel mark lies on its side and the corner brackets fail to open top and bottom. It is still readable, but it reads immediately as something not set properly.
- The text stays local
- Safe for unpublished manuscripts. Everything happens in the browser and nothing you paste reaches a server.
How to use
Paste the text
Line breaks become column breaks, so watch for breaks you inserted mid-paragraph — each one starts a new column.
Set characters per column
Longer lines wrap at that length into the next column. Digits and letters can optionally be converted to full width.
Take it with you
Copy the text version, or use "save as image" for a PNG.
Good to know
- Why does it misalign on social media?
- The text version assumes every character occupies the same width. Half-width letters and digits break that and shift the affected row sideways; turning on full-width conversion fixes it. A proportional font at the destination causes the same problem — X and most social sites render Japanese close enough to monospaced that it rarely shows, but specify a monospaced font wherever you can choose.
- Which font is used for the image?
- A Mincho face installed on this device — Hiragino Mincho, Yu Mincho and so on — or the default serif if none is present. Because that differs by machine, the same text looks different on Windows and macOS. For an image you intend to distribute as finished work, where the typeface itself matters, an image editor is the better tool.
- Punctuation position
- Vertical Japanese properly shifts commas and full stops to the top right of the character cell. The text-only version cannot do that and leaves them centred. The on-screen layout and the image follow the browser's vertical writing support, which places them correctly in most environments.
- No kinsoku line-breaking
- The rules that stop a column beginning with a full stop or a closing bracket are not implemented. Wrapping happens purely at the character count you set, so a column can start with a full stop. For work that has to be typeset properly, insert your own line breaks at the wrap points, or use dedicated typesetting software.
FAQ
- Is there a length limit?
- None, though the image grows wider with every column, so a long passage becomes a very wide and rather unreadable picture. For images, anything from a few dozen to a few hundred characters works well.
- Does it work for English?
- It does, but one character per row. Proper vertical setting of Latin text normally rotates whole words, which this tool does not do. Converting to full width at least keeps the columns aligned.
- Can it add ruby (furigana)?
- No. Ruby is a typesetting feature that sets small annotations beside the base characters, which plain vertical text cannot express. It would be technically possible in the image, but it needs a way to say which characters get which reading, and that is outside what this tool sets out to do.
- Is the input stored?
- No, and nothing is sent. Close the page and it is gone.
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