Types of speech bubbles and what they mean
| Bubble | Shape | What it tells the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Speech | Smooth oval with a pointed tail | Normal talking. The tail points at whoever speaks. |
| Shout | Spiky, jagged edge | Yelling, shock or a sudden loud line. |
| Thought | Cloud with a trail of small circles | What a character thinks but does not say. |
| Whisper | Dashed outline | Speaking quietly or secretly. |
| Caption or narration | Rectangle, no tail | The narrator, a time skip or a place: "Meanwhile..." |
| Sound effect | No bubble, big drawn letters | A sound or a feeling in the scene, drawn into the art. |
| No tail | Any bubble without a tail | A voice from off panel, on the phone or on a screen. |
Manga artists bend these rules all the time: a shaky outline for fear, a bubble that breaks the panel border for a line that cannot be contained. Our guide to reading panels and bubbles explains the reading order.
How to use the bubble maker
- Choose a background: a blank panel, a dotted screentone panel, a transparent sheet, or your own image from your phone or computer.
- Add a bubble and type the line. Use a new line for a line break.
- Move, resize and aim it: drag the bubble, drag the square corner to resize, drag the round handle to point the tail.
- Save it: download a PNG with a small mangit.app mark, or share it straight from your phone where your browser supports it.
Transparent PNG bubble pack
"Download blank bubble pack" gives you one transparent PNG with six empty bubbles (speech, shout, thought, whisper, caption and a tail-less bubble). Drop it into any editor, cut out the bubbles you need, and letter them yourself.
Lettering tips
- Leave air around the text. Text that touches the outline is hard to read.
- Short lines read faster. Break long sentences into two bubbles.
- Point the tail at the mouth, not the body, and keep it out of faces.
- Vertical Japanese reads top to bottom, and columns run from right to left.
Fonts and privacy
Dialogue uses Baloo 2, shouts and sound effects use Bangers, and thoughts and whispers use Caveat. All three are open fonts under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (licence details). Japanese text uses the font on your device. Your image is opened in your browser only; nothing is uploaded or stored by us.
Questions
Does the bubble maker cost anything?
No. It runs in your browser, needs no account and adds only a small mangit.app mark in the corner of the PNG.
Is my image uploaded?
No. Your image is opened and drawn in your browser. It never leaves your device.
Can I write vertical Japanese text?
Yes. Tick Vertical text for the selected bubble. Columns run from right to left, as in Japanese manga.
Can I get speech bubbles as a transparent PNG?
Yes. Choose the transparent background before saving, or download the blank bubble pack, a transparent PNG with six empty bubbles.
What do the different speech bubble shapes mean?
Round is speech, spiky is shouting, a cloud is a thought, a dashed outline is a whisper, a box is narration, and drawn letters are sound effects.
