Enchanting Table Translator

How to use it

1. Type your text in the box. Letters a–z are translated; numbers and symbols stay as they are.
2. The glyphs update as you type, drawn with the game's own enchanting font.
3. Press Download PNG for an image you can drop into a thumbnail, a map or a Discord message.

Good to know

• The table's floating words are random, so you can't decode which enchantment you will get from them.
• Writing the alphabet chart on a sign or in a book is a fun way to leave secret notes on a server.
• In a resource pack or JSON text you can use the "minecraft:alt" font to show this alphabet in game.

Related: Enchanting table calculator, Enchanting table guide, and the enchantment calculator for the cheapest anvil order.

The enchanting table alphabet

Each letter of the Latin alphabet has its own glyph. The game uses the Standard Galactic Alphabet, first made for the Commander Keen games. Here is the full chart:

Does the enchanting table text mean anything?

Not really. The glyphs next to each option are random words picked from a fixed list, and they don't hint at the enchantment you will get. The only real hint is the tooltip that shows one enchantment when you hover an option.

If you want to know what an option can give, the enchanting table calculator shows the odds for every enchantment.

How the translation works

The Standard Galactic Alphabet is a letter-for-letter cipher. Each of the 26 letters swaps for one glyph, and nothing else changes. So the tool keeps your spaces, line breaks and word lengths exactly as you typed them.

The game's font has no capitals. Upper and lower case letters share the same glyph, so "Steve" and "steve" look identical. There are also no glyphs for digits or punctuation. If you want a number in a secret message, spell it out: write "five", not "5".

Reading a message by hand

To decode a line, match each glyph against the chart above, one letter at a time. Start with short words. In English, one-letter words are almost always "a" or "i", and "the" and "and" turn up everywhere. Once you know a few letters, the rest of the message falls into place quickly.

Where the alphabet shows up in the game

• The enchanting table screen: each option shows a short line of glyphs next to its level.
• The particles that fly from bookshelves into the table are glyphs from the same alphabet.
• Those particles only come from shelves that add power, so they double as a quick test of your bookshelf setup.
• Java's built-in "alt" font draws any text in these glyphs, which is what the command examples below use.

What the words on the buttons are

The game builds each line from a short list of English words stored in its code. Some are magic words, and a few are jokes and nods to old games and stories, such as xyzzy, embiggen and Cthulhu. It strings a few of them together at random, then cuts the line to fit the button.

Because the pick is random, the same words can sit next to Sharpness one time and Protection the next. The real clue is the hover text. It names one enchantment and level, followed by ". . . ?", and that enchantment is always part of the result.

Using the glyphs with commands

In Java you can print the alphabet in chat with a text component that sets the font. For example, /tellraw @a {"text":"hello","font":"minecraft:alt"} shows "hello" as enchanting glyphs to every player.

The same font key works in item names. Try /give @p name_tag[custom_name={text:"secret",font:"minecraft:alt"}] for a name tag with a hidden word. The anvil color names tool writes the rest of a custom name for you, and you can add the font key to its command.

Signs and books written in survival can't switch fonts. For those, the PNG download is the easy way to share a message, for example in a map art build or a server rules board.