How to Get Readable Text Inside AI Images

You ask for a poster that says "Summer Sale, 20% Off Everything". What comes back looks great, until you read it: "Sumer Sael, 2O% Of Evrything". The layout is right and the colours are right, but the words are unusable.

This is the most common problem with text in AI images, and it's mostly fixable. Some of it comes down to how you write the prompt. Some of it comes down to which model you pick. And some of it you just can't fix with prompting, so it helps to know where that line is.

Why text goes wrong

Image models don't type. They paint shapes that look like letters in context. Short, common words are easy because the model has seen them a lot. Long lines, rare words, small print and unusual alphabets are where the shapes drift into near-misses.

That's why the same prompt can give you a perfect headline on one run and gibberish on the next. Results vary run to run, even with strong models. Plan to generate a few options and pick the clean one.

Step 1: Put the exact words in quotes

Every vendor guide I read says the same thing first. Ideogram's docs tell you to quote the exact words and mention them early. Google's guidance for Nano Banana Pro is to state clearly what text should appear and how it should look. Black Forest Labs' FLUX.2 guide also uses quotation marks for the text.

Compare these:

• Weak: a coffee shop poster about a summer sale
• Better: A coffee shop poster with the headline "SUMMER SALE" in large letters at the top

In the weak version, the model has to invent the words, and it will. In the better one, you've given it the exact string and where it goes.

Step 2: Keep the copy short

This is the single biggest lever. Ideogram's guide says to keep text short to cut spelling errors, and to keep the scene simple for cleaner lettering. It also states plainly that long passages exceed what the model can do, and suggests design tools for body copy.

A practical rule:

• One to four words for a headline works best.
• A short tagline is a stretch goal. Expect to regenerate.
• Paragraphs, legal lines and price tables belong in a design tool, added after.

If your headline keeps breaking on one word, swap it for a shorter synonym. The Ideogram guide suggests exactly this.

Step 3: Say where it goes and what it looks like

Position and style both help. The FLUX.2 guide recommends specifying where text appears relative to other elements, describing the typographic style, and indicating relative size (headline, subheading, body copy).

Describe the look instead of naming a font. Ideogram's docs suggest words like bold, thin, serif, sans-serif or script. Google's example is a good template: The headline "URBAN EXPLORER" rendered in bold, white, sans-serif font at the top.

A full prompt might read:

A vintage concert poster. At the top, "BLUE NOTE SESSIONS" in large gold serif capitals. Below, "Live jazz every Saturday" in smaller off-white italic serif. Dark navy background, a saxophone silhouette in the centre.

Ideogram's guide also says to list multiple text blocks in reading order, top to bottom. That prompt does.

If you have brand colours, FLUX.2's guide says hex codes work for text colour, for example the logo text "ACME" in color #FF5733. Treat the match as approximate and check it.

Step 4: Pick a model that's built for it

Not every model is equally good at lettering. Based on what the makers say:

• Nano Banana Pro (Google's Gemini 3 Pro Image): Google calls it the best model for correctly rendered, legible text and says it handles several languages. That's Google's claim, so test it on your own copy.
• Ideogram: text is its main selling point, and its docs have a whole page on it.
• FLUX.2: the docs say it handles clean typography and explicit placement well.

In Mediafy Studio you can choose from models such as Seedream 5 Pro, GPT Image 2 and Nano Banana 2 in the model picker, run the same quoted prompt on two or three, and compare. The credit cost shows on the Generate button before you run it, so you can see what a test costs.

If you're new to the Studio, the first image tutorial covers the basics.

Step 5: Know the limits

Be honest with yourself about what won't work:

1. Small text. Google's own tips admit that rendering small text, fine details and accurate spelling may not work perfectly. Make the text large.
2. Non-English text. Ideogram says English is the most accurate, and that non-Latin scripts and accented letters often render incorrectly. Google warns that multilingual output can contain grammar errors. Have a native speaker check it.
3. Data and facts. Prices, dates, phone numbers and URLs need a human proofread every time.
4. Complex layouts. BFL's docs note that many text callouts in one image need very careful prompts, and their own example shows some artifacts.

Step 6: Fix it instead of re-rolling forever

When the image is nearly right, don't throw it away.

1. Regenerate a few times. It's the cheapest fix.
2. Shorten or swap the word that's failing.
3. Use an edit prompt on the good image. Google's example is an edit-style instruction: Translate all the English text on the three yellow and blue cans into Korean, while keeping everything else the same. The same pattern works for fixing one word: Keep everything the same, but change the headline to "SUMMER SALE". Edit-capable models vary in how well they obey, so check the result.
4. For anything that must be perfect, generate the image with a blank area, then add the real text in Canva, Figma or Photoshop. A logo, a price or a legal line should always be set as real type.

That last option is often the right call for marketing work. Let the AI do the picture and let a design tool do the words.

A quick checklist

• Exact words in quotation marks.
• Text mentioned early in the prompt.
• Four words or fewer for the main line.
• Position, size and style described.
• Simple scene around the text.
• Two or three models tried, several runs each.
• Final proofread by a person.

If you want a guided path through this kind of workflow, the AI Creator Lab course is the place to look. Or sign in to Mediafy Studio and try one quoted headline across a few models.

Sources

• Ideogram, "Text in Images" (Ideogram docs): https://docs.ideogram.ai/prompting/text-in-images.md
• Ideogram, "Text and Typography" section of the prompting tips: https://docs.ideogram.ai/using-ideogram/prompting-tips
• Black Forest Labs, "Typography" use case guide for FLUX.2: https://docs.eu.bfl.ai/guides/usecases_t2i_typography_design
• Google, "Nano Banana Pro image generation in Gemini: Prompt tips": https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gemini/prompting-tips-nano-banana-pro/