How it works
Twenty-seven pieces of happy birthday text message art, drawn for this page in keyboard characters: cakes, balloons, presents, a party hat, bunting and the greeting itself. They run from one line to twelve, and six take a name.
Read the full guide
Start with the six made for a message
A message box may fold a run of spaces into one. Six pieces of two to four lines have none to fold, so they come first: a greeting, a cake, a row of candles, balloons, a present and a cupcake. Squash-proof shows those and the four one-liners.
Put a name on it
Six pieces say NAME: the two-line greeting, a balloon's tag, a present, a card, a banner and a cake. Type over it and pad with spaces so the line keeps its length. The card and the cake take 13 characters.
- Three-tier birthday cake is the tallest, 12 lines by 21 columns. It needs a monospaced font: the cat page says why.
- The cake, balloon and party popper as single characters are on birthday emojis.
- For a card to print and color, see happy birthday bubble letters.
Questions and answers
Which birthday art is short enough for a text?
Ten pieces are squash-proof. Four are one line, from Birthday cake, one line at 9 characters to Happy birthday, one line at 30. The other six are two to four lines and at most 22 columns wide.
How many candles are on the cakes?
One, three and five on the three plain cakes, one on the three-tier cake and five on Cake with a name on it. Birthday candles in a row has seven. Each candle is a bar with a comma above it for the flame.
Why are the candles crooked after I paste?
The font is proportional: a comma or a bar takes less room than a letter, so the columns slide apart. Switch to a monospaced font where the app offers one, or use a squash-proof piece, which has no column of spaces to lose.