How to make bubble letters in Word, Google Docs and Canva

You can get close to bubble letters in Word, Google Docs or Canva with the right font and an outline effect. Here is how in each, and where each one falls short for big printouts.

In Microsoft Word

  1. Type your word and select it.
  2. Choose a rounded, heavy font. Fonts such as Cooper Black or Arial Rounded MT Bold are installed with many copies of Office, and any bold rounded font works.
  3. On the Home tab, open Text Effects and Typography, then Outline, and choose black. Set the text fill to white for a coloring outline.
  4. Increase the font size. Word goes up to 1638 points, but a single letter taller than the page will be cut off.
  5. Print at 100%.

In Google Docs

Google Docs has no outline effect for text. The workaround is Insert, then Drawing, then Word Art: type your word, then set the fill to white and the border to black with a thick border weight. Pick a rounded font from the font menu first. Google Fonts includes several bubble-style faces (search the font list for rounded display fonts). Size the Word Art box, save it into the document and print.

In Canva

Canva has many rounded display fonts and an outline effect under Effects, called Hollow or Outline. Type the text, choose a font, apply Hollow, and increase the thickness. Canva designs are sized in pixels or inches, so set a custom size in inches to know exactly how big the letters print. For a banner longer than one page, you need to split the design yourself across several pages.

Where these tools fall short

All three are built for documents, not lettering, and the same problems come up. Letters bigger than one page are cut off rather than split across pages. Outline effects are drawn centered on the letter edge, so thick outlines eat into the holes of A, B and O. And fonts installed on your computer may not be licensed for printing products you sell, so check the license before using a printout commercially.

The bubble letter maker is built for exactly this job: type the word, choose the letter height in inches, and it splits big letters across pages with crop marks. The fonts are openly licensed, and you can still bring the SVG into Canva or Word as an image if you want to add it to a flyer.

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Frequently asked questions

How do I make bubble letters in Word?

Type the word, choose a heavy rounded font, then use Text Effects and Typography, then Outline, to add a black outline and set the fill to white. Increase the size and print at 100%.

Can you make bubble letters in Google Docs?

Yes, through Insert, Drawing, Word Art: choose a rounded font, set a white fill and a thick black border.

What font looks like bubble letters?

Heavy rounded display fonts such as Cooper Black or rounded bubble fonts from Google Fonts. The Bubble style on this site uses Modak, an openly licensed bubble font.

How do I print bubble letters bigger than a page from Word?

Word cuts off letters larger than the page. Use a tool that tiles the letters across several sheets, such as the bubble letter maker on this site.