Interlinear gloss generator

Word Aligner is a free interlinear gloss generator that runs in your browser. Stack a source line, a gloss, an optional IPA tier, and a translation, draw the word alignment, and export a clean diagram. There is no signup, and your text stays in the browser unless you choose to share it.

How it works

Building a gloss takes four steps:

  • Add your lines: the source text, a gloss, and a free translation, plus IPA if you want it.
  • Mark morpheme boundaries with a hyphen or another split character you choose.
  • Click tokens to draw colored links between the words that correspond.
  • Export the result as PNG, SVG, PDF, or HTML, or copy a share link.

What it does

Each line has its own font, size, spacing, and optional right-to-left layout, so you can mix scripts in one diagram. You can hide the connectors between adjacent lines while keeping the links in the data, which is how a tight gloss-and-source block reads as one unit. Colors group many-to-one correspondences, and palettes adjust how links and tokens are colored. Custom fonts upload under Settings → Fonts for invented or less common scripts. Finished diagrams export to PNG, SVG, PDF, and self-contained HTML, and a share link encodes the whole layout. There is also an API for generating alignment URLs programmatically.

It follows Leipzig conventions

The tool is built around the standard way linguists write glosses. Hyphens align morphemes, a period joins one-to-many correspondences, and grammatical labels follow the usual set. See the Leipzig Glossing Rules for the conventions and the abbreviations cheat sheet for the labels. If you are new to glossing, start with how to read an interlinear gloss.

See it on real languages

The example gallery covers case stacking, reduplication, zero morphemes, right-to-left scripts, and constructed languages, each as a finished diagram you can open in the editor and change. They double as templates for your own work, whether that is a handout, a grammar, a conlang post, or a slide.

Compared to markup tools

Glossing in a word processor means fighting tab stops, and LaTeX packages or JavaScript libraries mean writing markup and compiling it. Those tools work, and some people prefer them. A visual editor trades the markup for direct manipulation: you see the alignment as you build it, mixed scripts and custom fonts are routine, and the export is a finished image rather than a build step. For a conlang in an invented script, that difference is the point, which the conlang glossing guide covers.

Open the editor Browse examples →