Pretext

Pretext is a really exciting new library by Cheng Lou that tackles one of the web’s most annoying problems: fast, accurate multiline text measurement and layout without relying on expensive DOM reads like getBoundingClientRect() or offsetHeight. It’s built for things like Canvas, SVG, custom layout engines, and more experimental UI work, and the live demos show off obstacle-aware text flow, masonry-style layouts, balanced bubbles, and other patterns that are usually painful to build on the web.

Credits: Cheng Lou on X