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Work · August 21, 2024

Handwriter.ttf – Handwriting Synthesis with Harfbuzz WASM

During the hype of llama.ttf months ago, I was speculating the potential of WASM shaper for even crazier purpose, one that fitter to a font shaper's duty -- to synthesize font at runtime. This project as proof-of-concept implements a synthesizer that generates and rasterizes handwriting-style font, backed by a super-lightweight RNN model (~14MiB).

Handwriter.ttf – Handwriting Synthesis with Harfbuzz WASM launched on August 21, 2024 with 191 votes, #267 of 5,471 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 2 years on.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 5% of August 2024

In plain words

Handwriter.ttf is a font synthesis tool that generates handwriting-style text at runtime using a lightweight RNN model integrated with Harfbuzz and WebAssembly. It dynamically creates and rasterizes fonts rather than using pre-built character sets, making each rendering unique. The project is designed for developers and designers interested in experimental typography and runtime font generation, with a minimal 14MB model footprint enabling practical browser-based use.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Handwriting synthesis with Harfbuzz WASM. Contribute to hsfzxjy/handwriter.ttf development by creating an account on GitHub.

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