Figured this out a couple weeks ago, hoping it can lead to some cool new art.
mkl•1h ago
Images of what it's supposed to look like would really help, as I'm pretty sure none of my browsers are rendering it as you hoped. For me in Chrome the first image looks vaguely like a landscape, with no identifiable features, and in Firefox it looks like grass (both on Android). The dog and tree shapes look distorted and glitchy, but recognisable if you know what they're supposed to be.
I spotted a typo: "font's like".
benswerd•1h ago
Just pushed fix to typo — can you let me know which chromium browser on which platform?
I'm primarily testing on Vivaldi on MacOS but also confirmed working on Chrome on MacOS.
gus_massa•11m ago
I agree, a few screenshots would be helphful for users of unsuported browsers.
5-0•43m ago
Neat! Sparklines could also benefit.
chrisfrantz•2h ago
Love that this exists now, thank you and nice read.
FWIW, didn't have any luck with the generator at the bottom, could be user error.
benswerd•2h ago
What browser was it in?
chrisfrantz•1h ago
Chrome, latest stable
benswerd•1h ago
MacOS Linux Windows or other?
bawolff•2h ago
I can't tell if the results are just very bad or my browser is just not rendering properly. I feel like its probably the later but it would be cool to have a reference picture to be sure.
benswerd•1h ago
which browser are you using?
gabcoh•1h ago
I’m also not seeing the purported images on iOS 26.1 safari
frizlab•1h ago
It apparently only works correctly on chromium-based browsers.
kibwen•1h ago
Appears to mostly work in Firefox, including in the browser tab title, which is funny.
ilaksh•10m ago
I am on Chrome on Android and it does not work. Although some of them it's like halfway there.
benswerd•1h ago
It does not work on iOS Safari at all, it should show a warning at the top saying so
krackers•2h ago
Seems like a more advanced version of zalgotext (which also uses combining marks)
benswerd•1h ago
This is beautiful and I did not know it existed until now tx
When I visit such pages, my impression is that someone want to break my browser.
benswerd•1h ago
thats the vibe i was going for
ilaksh•1m ago
Another thing in the category of abusing font capabilities is Harfbuzz (OpenType engine) WASM, which if compiled into an application allows fonts to basically run any code. A few examples are an LLM or a Tetris font. Apparently this WASM support is in the font rendering for Chrome and Firefox supposedly.
I was really tempted to try to use it to make a Harfbuzz OS.
benswerd•5h ago
mkl•1h ago
I spotted a typo: "font's like".
benswerd•1h ago
I'm primarily testing on Vivaldi on MacOS but also confirmed working on Chrome on MacOS.
gus_massa•11m ago
5-0•43m ago