How it works
Number bubble letters come with a catch: half the ten digits have a hole (0, 4, 6, 8, 9) and fattening fills holes. The sheet opens in Chewy, the cleanest of six fonts.
Read the full guide
0 to 9 in six round fonts
Chewy draws its 4 with an open top, so nothing can fill, and its 1 is a bare stick. Bubblegum Sans keeps round holes. Mochiy Pop One ticks its 7. Chango is the wide one. Lilita One shrinks holes to dots. Titan One is the heaviest: its 8 is a snowman.
An age, a shirt number, a year
Typed on the grid, a number splits into one digit a box: 16 comes out as a 1 above a 6. To print 14, 16 or 100 whole, open More options, then Kind of sheet, and pick Banner pages. Under Letters, Numbers 1 to 20 prints a clock's 1 to 12 and the teens, and Tens to 100 counts by ten. Their digits join into one outline.
Tips
- Drawing 26 by hand? Overlap the 2 and the 6 a little. Joined digits read as one number.
- The hole of a 6 sits low. Draw it small: a big hole thins the wall.
- In 15 the 1 has to read as a 1. Bubblegum Sans gives it a flag and a foot.
Questions and answers
How do you draw a 3 in bubble letters?
Pencil a thin 3, then draw one rounded outline around it, keeping both left-hand gaps open. Close them and the 3 reads as an 8, so 13 turns into 18. The gap under the flag of a 5 needs the same care.
How is 0 in bubble letters different from an O?
Zero is the slim one. Print typefaces traditionally draw the digit as a narrow oval and the capital O rounder. Five of these six fonts agree; in Chewy the O is the slimmer.
Should a 7 have a line through it?
The bar tells a handwritten 7 from a 1 with a long upstroke. Computer fonts almost never draw it, and none of these six do. In 17 the two sit side by side, so a bar drawn by hand helps.
Is there a how-to-draw sheet for numbers?
Open More options, then Kind of sheet, and pick How to draw it. All ten digits go through the four steps: pencil, outline, rub out, colour. Type one digit to see it alone.