Steam Fonts
- Small caps (2โ3 bytes per letter) 8 chars แด แดสแดสสษชแด
- Bold (4 bytes per letter) 8 chars ๐ฉ๐ฎ๐น๐ธ๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ
- Bold cursive (4 bytes per letter) 8 chars ๐ฅ๐ช๐ต๐ด๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ฎ
- Bold gothic (4 bytes per letter) 8 chars ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
- Wide (3 bytes per letter) 8 chars ๏ผถ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ
- Xi ending (ไบ) 9 chars แด แดสแดสสษชแดไบ
- Royal frame 14 chars ๊งเผบ Valkyrie เผป๊ง
- Monospace (4 bytes per letter) 8 chars ๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐๐๐
Steam fonts are Unicode text styles, such as ๐ฉ๐ฎ๐น๐ธ๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ or แด แดสแดสสษชแด, that you paste into your Steam profile name, profile summary or comments. Steam's profile name is reported to be limited by bytes rather than characters, so each row above notes how many UTF-8 bytes its letters take.
Steam profile name vs account name
Steam has 2 names, and only one of them accepts fancy fonts:
| Account name | Profile name | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your login name | The name friends and other players see |
| Can it change? | No | Yes, in Edit Profile |
| Fancy fonts | No | Unicode styles accepted |
Edit the profile name from your Steam profile page with Edit Profile, then the Profile Name field. The new name appears in your friends list and on your profile.
How many fancy letters fit in a Steam name?
Steam forum users report that the profile name holds 32 bytes, not 32 characters. Valve does not state the limit in its help pages, so treat 32 bytes as the observed limit. UTF-8 stores plain letters in 1 byte, small caps in 2 or 3 bytes, wide letters in 3 bytes and mathematical bold, cursive and gothic letters in 4 bytes. The same 8-letter name therefore ranges from 8 to 32 bytes:
| Name style | Characters (code points) | UTF-16 units | UTF-8 bytes | Outside the BMP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valkyrie Plain | 8 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| แด แดสแดสสษชแด | 8 | 8 | 20 | 0 |
| ๏ผถ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ | 8 | 8 | 24 | 0 |
| แด แดสแดสสษชแดไบ | 9 | 9 | 23 | 0 |
| ๊งเผบ Valkyrie เผป๊ง | 14 | 14 | 22 | 0 |
| ๐ฉ๐ฎ๐น๐ธ๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ | 8 | 16 | 32 | 8 |
| ๐ฅ๐ช๐ต๐ด๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ฎ | 8 | 16 | 32 | 8 |
| ๐๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ข | 8 | 16 | 32 | 8 |
| โ ๅฝก ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๅฝกโ | 14 | 22 | 46 | 8 |
Under a 32-byte cap, a bold, cursive or gothic Steam name holds at most 8 letters, and โ ๅฝก ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๅฝกโ at 46 bytes does not fit. Small caps fit 10 to 16 letters, depending on the mix of 2-byte and 3-byte letters. The small text generator produces the small-cap letters with the lowest byte cost.
Steam profile summary formatting vs Unicode fonts
The Steam profile summary reads BBCode, so bold and italic do not need Unicode there. Steam's formatting help lists tags such as
[b], [i], [u], [strike], [spoiler], [h1],
[list] and [quote] for profile summaries, reviews and comments. The 2 approaches differ in 3 ways:
| BBCode [b]bold[/b] | Unicode ๐ฏ๐ผ๐น๐ฑ | |
|---|---|---|
| Works in the profile name | No | Yes |
| Screen readers | Read as normal words | Skipped by NVDA, Narrator and VoiceOver; read letter by letter by JAWS |
| Copied text | Pastes as plain letters | Pastes as the same styled characters |
Use BBCode wherever Steam reads it, and Unicode styles in the profile name and in places that ignore BBCode. The fancy text accessibility guide covers how each screen reader handles styled letters.
Steam name symbols
Steam names accept symbols as well as styled letters. Frames such as ๊งเผบ Valkyrie เผป๊ง add 3 bytes per frame symbol, because ๊ง เผบ เผป ๊ง are 3-byte characters in UTF-8. Single symbols such as โ (3 bytes) or ไบ (3 bytes) cost less than a 4-byte styled letter. The aesthetic symbols copy and paste page lists more symbols by category.
Fonts for other games
PC and VR platforms check names in different ways. VRChat fonts covers display names of 4 to 15 characters that change every 90 days, and Fortnite fonts covers Epic's 3โ16 character display names. For bold text with digits, use the bold text generator.
Steam fonts questions
Can I change my Steam account name to a fancy font?
No. The Steam account name is the login name and cannot be changed. The profile name, the name your friends see, is a separate field that accepts Unicode styles.
Why is my Steam name cut off with fancy letters?
Steam forum users report that the profile name is limited to 32 bytes, not 32 characters. A bold or cursive letter takes 4 bytes in UTF-8, so 8 styled letters fill 32 bytes. Use small caps (2โ3 bytes per letter) for longer names.
Can I make bold text in my Steam profile summary without a font generator?
Yes. Steam's text formatting accepts BBCode tags such as [b]bold[/b], [i]italic[/i], [u]underline[/u] and [strike]strikethrough[/strike] in profile summaries, reviews and comments. Unicode bold is only needed in fields that do not read BBCode, such as the profile name.