Safe Mode

Powerful text capabilities, available right away

ETeext can turn your text into a wide variety of styles: bold, italic, gothic, cursive, monospace, special effects like Zalgo, and much more. It can do so even on the accented characters of the Latin alphabet used by the so-called European languages. All these styles rely on special Unicode characters, and they are fully available from the start, with no setting to turn on.

These styled characters are not just decorative fonts: they are real characters, which is what lets them work almost everywhere — on social networks, in messaging apps, in articles, in comments, in bios… This is what makes ETeext powerful.

Why do some characters show up as squares?

On some devices, styled characters may appear as small empty squares (or squares with a cross, or a question mark). This phenomenon has a name: it is called "tofu."

The word comes from the resemblance of these little rectangles to a piece of tofu. It is not an ETeext bug, nor an error in your text: it simply means that the device or app displaying the text "on the receiving end" does not have, in its fonts, the drawing of the requested character. Unable to know what to draw, it shows a placeholder rectangle.

This happens more often on certain devices (sometimes "Chinese" ones, or more broadly devices whose system fonts are optimized for other alphabets). Their fonts cover their own writing systems perfectly, but may not include every exotic styled character of the Latin alphabet — hence tofu in place of some effects.

In other words: your text is correct, but the device on the other end cannot fully display it.

What is the "Safe Mode" switch for?

Safe Mode is an option designed for exactly this case. By default, it is off: you then enjoy the full power of ETeext and all its styles.

If you notice (or fear) that your text might show up as tofu for your recipients, you can turn on Safe Mode before applying styles and text modifiers. ETeext will then replace the riskiest characters with their plain equivalent — a normal letter, readable everywhere. The result is less spectacular, but it is guaranteed to display correctly on any device.

So it is a trade-off you choose depending on the context:

• Safe Mode off (default): all effects, maximum visual impact — ideal when you know the display will follow.
• Safe Mode on: a simplified but more readable result.

What Safe Mode actually changes in your text

When you turn on Safe Mode, the transformations you apply favor the most compatible characters. Styles that rely on fragile characters, accented ones — those using effects heavily loaded with stacked marks, or certain families of uncommon letters — are replaced by their plain version rather than risking tofu.

You can turn this mode on or off at any time: it is a simple switch. This way you can compare the two results and choose the one that suits your situation.

Technical section: why tofu appears (and how the mode avoids it)

For the curious, here is what happens "under the hood."

ETeext's styles do not change the display font (which would be a matter of CSS): they change the characters themselves. A styled bold "a," for example, is not an "a" dressed in formatting — it is a distinct Unicode character, drawn from a special block (the mathematical alphanumeric symbols). This is precisely what lets these styles travel across platforms that do not allow changing the font.

The downside is that, to display these characters, the receiving device must have their drawing (glyph) in its fonts. If the glyph is missing, the device shows the replacement character — the infamous tofu. The more "exotic" (uncommon) a character is, the higher the risk that a font does not cover it — and some device ecosystems, optimized for other writing systems, cover fewer of them.

Some effects also stack combining marks: accents or marks layered onto a letter. Here again, their rendering depends on the device's ability to position them correctly; in poorly equipped environments, the result may be imperfect.

Safe Mode acts upstream: rather than producing these risky characters, it falls back to standard letters, present in absolutely every font. This is what guarantees a display, at the cost of the visual effect.