Overline Text Generator – Bars, Single, Double and Macron

Q: How do I type a line over a letter?

Type the letter here and copy it from Overline or Macron. What you get is the letter followed by a combining mark, U+0305 or U+0304, which the reader's device draws on top of it.

Same text, other bars

Double overline 22 characterso̿v̿e̿r̿ t̿h̿e̿ t̿o̿p̿U+033F Combining double overline after every letter: two bars that connect the same way. The Unicode core specification shows it over a Coptic letter, where it marks a multiple of 1,000.

Macron 22 charactersōv̄ēr̄ t̄h̄ē t̄ōp̄U+0304 Combining macron after every letter: a short bar for each letter, with no note about connecting. Unicode also calls it long, and notes it as the first tone of Pinyin.

Double macron 19 characterso͞v͞e͞r t͞h͞e t͞o͞pU+035E Combining double macron after every letter but the last of each word. The core specification says a double diacritic belongs to the letter before it and hangs over the following letter as well.

Tramlines 32 characterso̲̅v̲̅e̲̅r̲̅ t̲̅h̲̅e̲̅ t̲̅o̲̅p̲̅U+0305 Combining overline and U+0332 Combining low line after every letter, so the word runs between two rails. It is the only row here that draws anything below the letters.

Dashed overline 17 characterso̅ve̅r t̅he̅ to̅pU+0305 Combining overline after every other letter, counting letters and skipping spaces, so the bar comes out as dashes one letter long.

More options

Check it fits: limit characters

Use these for fun, not for anything that matters. Screen readers read many of these characters badly or skip them, search cannot find them, and some apps strip them or show empty boxes.

How it works

This overline text generator adds a combining mark after every letter you type, which draws a bar over it. The 6 bars are characters, not formatting, so the line pastes. Some apps strip or block these characters, and screen readers may read them badly.

Read the full guide

One bar on top, five more below

The large card shows your line under Overline, U+0305. Double overline, Macron, Double macron, Tramlines and Dashed overline sit below. Spaces get no mark, so the bar breaks between words.

What a bar over text means

Type only what belongs under the bar. Over repeating digits it marks the repeat, so 0.3̅ is one third. Over x it is a sample mean, x̄, and over a logic term it is NOT. Over a Roman numeral it multiplies by 1,000, so I̅V̅ is 4,000. A macron marks a long vowel, as in Māori.

Tips

For a bar on its own, copy ‾, U+203E Overline, which joins in a row. The macron ¯, U+00AF, does not join.
A macron result is a letter plus U+0304. For ā Unicode also has one ready-made character, U+0101, and treats the two as the same text.
In a box with a character limit, every bar counts: over the top is 12 characters as typed and 22 under an overline.

Questions and answers

How do I type a line over a letter?

Type the letter here and copy it from Overline or Macron. What you get is the letter followed by a combining mark, U+0305 or U+0304, which the reader's device draws on top of it.

What is the x bar symbol?

x̄, read x bar, is the sample mean in statistics. Unicode has no single character for it, so it is always an x followed by a combining mark. Type x and copy it from Macron or Overline.

Why does my bar have gaps?

The reader's font draws it. Unicode intends U+0305 to connect on the left and right, but Wikipedia records that a run such as 1̅2̅3̅ may come out broken or unbroken, depending on the font. U+0304, the macron, carries no such note.

How do I overline text in CSS or LaTeX?

In CSS, text-decoration: overline draws a line over each line of text. In LaTeX maths, \overline{x+y} puts a bar over the expression. Neither changes the characters, and the Unicode standard itself prefers styled text to these marks for overlining.

All 6 bars

Bars over text 6

Dashed overline U+0305 Combining overline after every other letter, counting letters and skipping spaces, so the bar comes out as dashes one letter long.
Double macron U+035E Combining double macron after every letter but the last of each word. The core specification says a double diacritic belongs to the letter before it and hangs over the following letter as well.
Double overline U+033F Combining double overline after every letter: two bars that connect the same way. The Unicode core specification shows it over a Coptic letter, where it marks a multiple of 1,000.
Macron U+0304 Combining macron after every letter: a short bar for each letter, with no note about connecting. Unicode also calls it long, and notes it as the first tone of Pinyin.
Overline U+0305 Combining overline after every letter. Unicode also calls it overscore and vinculum and notes that it connects on left and right, so a word reads as one bar.
Tramlines U+0305 Combining overline and U+0332 Combining low line after every letter, so the word runs between two rails. It is the only row here that draws anything below the letters.

How this list was compiled

We wrote these 6 recipes ourselves. Each one says which combining marks follow which letters of your text: every letter, every other letter, or every letter but the last of a word. No recipe draws at random, so the same text always gives the same result, and spaces never get a mark. The five marks used are U+0305 Combining overline, U+033F Combining double overline, U+0304 Combining macron, U+035E Combining double macron and U+0332 Combining low line. A script looked up every code point, name, category and combining class in the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and stops if one differs, so nothing here was typed by hand. The other names and the notes quoted from Unicode (overscore, vinculum, long, connects on left and right) come from https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/NamesList.txt. The statements that these lines are intended to connect, that the double overline can mark a multiple of 1,000 in Coptic numerals, and that a double diacritic applies to the letter before it and hangs over the next are from sections 7.3 and 7.9 of the core specification (https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode18.0.0/core-spec/chapter-7/). All checked on 2026-09-20. The small sample beside each name is abc with that recipe applied, made by the same code the page runs. Licence: own work (facts from the Unicode Character Database, Unicode License v3, restated in our own words)