Show HN: TitleArt – Make text like it's 1997

(titleart.dvy.io)

141 points | by davidbarker 4 hours ago

13 comments

  • davidbarker 3 hours ago
    I wanted to make a faithful recreation of the original WordArt so I went through the various screenshots I could find and tweaked the built-in styles by eye. It's pretty fun to play with, and I didn't realise it would take me back to sitting in the ICT computer rooms at my school in the late '90s.

    Enjoy!

    And please feel free to share anything you make with me — I'd love to see. (Contact details in the help menu.)

    • poglet 3 hours ago
      Brought back many memories. There were also some fonts that added 'shimmer' and 'sparkle' text. You didn't run up a Win98 VM and install the old Word? Great job at making it all by screenshots and eye.
      • davidbarker 3 hours ago
        Wonderful.

        I never thought of that, actually. Perhaps I should as I don't remember shimmer or sparkle. I'll see if I can find some examples (if you happen to know of any I can reference please send them over).

        • akx 2 hours ago
          Here -- they were effects you could add on regular text:

          https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RHbP2Q7A-Wg

          (I still find it mind-boggling that Word 2000 runs mostly just fine on a MacBook with an entirely different OS and processor architecture via Whisky/Wine.)

  • matsemann 44 minutes ago
    At around 10 years old, I remember spending more time on the word art for my titles than the rest of the paper for school projects, heh.

    Also remember that I set up some kind of templating, where I could print the same document multiple times, but it would go down a list of values. So I could print personalized birthday invitations, I felt so cool 8)

  • mixdup 3 hours ago
    One of the weirdest bits of 90s tech trivia: Scott Forstall, who was in charge of software at Apple when the iPhone was initially developed, when working as an Intern at Microsoft contributed to the development of WordArt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Forstall#Present
    • krackers 27 minutes ago
      Not just the iPhone, he was also responsible for aqua

      >Forstall became a leading designer of the Mac's new Aqua user interface, known for its water-themed visual cues such as translucent icons and reflections, making him a rising star in the company.

      It's after he left that osx yosemite gained its flat design, and the continuing deterioration of HIG ever since.

  • muglug 3 hours ago
    I had some fun adding WordArt support to Slack's Word document renderer.

    Turns out that WordArt is still feasible in modern-day Word, but it's really fiddly.

    • davidbarker 3 hours ago
      Do you have any notes/write-up on that? I'd love to read.
      • tim-- 1 hour ago
        You need to open up a document in Compatibility Mode on a Windows machine. Basically, open an older .doc file (save a blank new document in Word, as a Word 2000 file). You will see it in the "Insert" tab on the ribbon (it's the "A" next to "text box").
  • bozdemir 46 minutes ago
    I miss 90s CorelDRAW, it reminds me of that. Thanks for the nostalgia fill.
  • morikyouko 1 hour ago
    Is there any plans to support CJK fonts or to release the source code so others can contribute? I'm so disappointed it doesn't support my language! https://www.makewordart.com/ supports a wider character set but is no where near as good otherwise.
  • symbolhunter 1 hour ago
    Man, this takes me back! The internet felt like a different place back then.
  • eis3nheim 2 hours ago
    This just bought back memories, I used to play with it for hours when I was a kid.
  • halflife 1 hour ago
    I remember having Word 5 installed on my pc, while the other classmates had Word 97. I was so jealous for their wordart!
  • windows2020 3 hours ago
    I've always been fond of the red blue gradient one which I imagine to be an Arizona desert.
  • ReplyIntelligen 46 minutes ago
    haha thats a blast from the past !
  • sairajb2249 1 hour ago
    Absolutely love this, like its smooth!
  • naeemnur 1 hour ago
    [dead]