A mirror flips left and right but leaves up and down alone. The generator imitates that in two steps. It replaces each letter with a character that looks like its reflection, then reverses the order of the characters in every line. Some pairs already exist in the ordinary alphabet, and others are borrowed from other parts of Unicode.
| Group | Examples |
|---|
| Swapped pairs | b and d trade places, as do p and q |
| Borrowed lowercase | a becomes ɒ, c becomes ɔ, e becomes ɘ, r becomes ɿ, n becomes ᴎ |
| Borrowed capitals | C becomes Ɔ, D becomes ᗡ, E becomes Ǝ, N becomes И, R becomes Я, S becomes Ƨ |
| Punctuation | ? becomes ⸮, and the pairs ( ), [ ], { }, < > and / \ swap sides |
| Left as they are | The capitals A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y and the lowercase i, l, m, o, u, v, w, x, y are already symmetrical |
Digits are not mirrored, so Room 12? becomes ⸮21 mooЯ and the 2 still faces the original way. A handful of lowercase letters, namely s, f, t, g, j and k, have only rough partners, so check the result by eye before using it anywhere that matters.
Because the reversal is applied line by line, a poem of three lines keeps its three lines in the same order, with each one reflected. The phrase Mirror, mirror comes out as ɿoɿɿim ,ɿoɿɿiM. The comma now leads the second word, the capital M finishes the line, and the small m stays put because it is symmetrical. Reading the output from right to left gives back the original, which is a handy way to proofread a long reflected passage.