How to Make a Sign in Minecraft: Glow Text, Hanging Signs
Six planks and a stick make 3 signs. How to make a sign in Minecraft, write on both sides, color and glow the text, wax it, and craft hanging signs.
Put 6 planks in the top two rows of a crafting table and 1 stick in the bottom-center slot. You get 3 signs. The planks all have to be the same wood, and they decide the color: oak planks make an oak sign, bamboo planks a bamboo sign, and so on.
Writing on a sign
Place the sign and the text editor opens straight away. You get four short lines. Press Done (or Escape on PC) when you’re finished. Signs have two sides: stand on the other side and use the sign to write on the back.
To change the text later, use the sign again. That stops working once the sign is waxed: use a honeycomb on it and the text is locked for everyone. Waxing is worth doing on shared servers so other players can’t scribble over your labels. Get honeycomb by shearing a full beehive; our honey guide shows how to do that safely.
Colors and glowing text
- Dye: use any dye on a sign to change the text color for that side. Black is the default.
- Glow ink sac: makes the text glow, bright enough to read at night. Glow ink sacs come from glow squid, which live in dark underwater caves.
- Ink sac: removes the glow again.
On Java servers with plugins, you’ll sometimes see signs using formatting codes; the color codes page explains those, but in plain survival dyes are the way to color text.
Hanging signs
A hanging sign is made from 6 stripped logs and 2 chains: chain in the top-left and top-right slots, stripped logs filling the two rows below. That gives you 6 hanging signs. They hang under a block or stick out from a wall on a bracket, and they’re great for shop fronts and street names.
Strip a log by using an axe on it. Chains are iron nuggets and an ingot.
Practical uses
- Labeling storage. Place a sign on the front of a chest by sneaking and using the sign on it. It’s the simplest sorting system there is.
- Holding back water and lava. Liquids don’t flow into a sign’s space, so a sign can sit in a doorway or tunnel opening and keep water out while you walk through.
- Fake walls and furniture. Signs on the sides of a block make armrests for a chair or a frame for a painting.
- Wayfinding. A sign at each tunnel junction saves a lot of getting lost in big mines.
Signs burn and can be used as furnace fuel, but they’re cheap enough that it rarely matters.
Common questions
How do you edit a sign after placing it?
Use it (right-click on PC) to reopen the text editor, unless it has been waxed with honeycomb. Waxed signs are locked.
How do you make sign text glow?
Use a glow ink sac on the sign. The text becomes bright and readable in the dark. A regular ink sac removes the glow again.
How many signs does one craft make?
Three standard signs from 6 planks and a stick, or six hanging signs from 6 stripped logs and 2 chains.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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