Vara.js is a javascript library that can create text-drawing effects using SVG. It uses special fonts to create these effects.

Installation and Basic usage

Download the files from Github and include the library as follows

<script src="vara.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

And call it.

new Vara("#element","font.json",[{
	text:"Handwritten"
}],{
	fontSize:46
});

The first argument, #element is the container element for the SVG.

The font used is a specially created JSON file that contains the information needed to create the text. It is included by passing the URL of the font as the second argument.
A few custom fonts are available in the Github repository, more will be added soon. The creation of custom fonts is explained here.

The third argument is an array of objects, where each object will represent a block of text to be drawn. The text to be drawn is passed as the text property.

The last argument is an object to provide options like fontSize, color, etc.

Options

new Vara("#container","font.json",[
{
	text:"Hello World", // String, text to be shown
	fontSize:24, // Number, size of the text
	strokeWidth:.5, // Width / Thickness of the stroke
	color:"black", // Color of the text
	id:"", // String or integer, for if animations are called manually or when using the get() method. Default is the index of the object.
	duration:2000, // Number, Duration of the animation in milliseconds
	textAlign:"left", // String, text align, accepted values are left,center,right
	x:0, // Number, x coordinate of the text
	y:0, // Number, y coordinate of the text
	fromCurrentPosition:{ // Whether the x or y coordinate should be from its calculated position, ie the position if x or y coordinates were not applied
		x:true, // Boolean
		y:true, // Boolean
	},
	autoAnimation:true, // Boolean, Whether to animate the text automatically
	queued:true, // Boolean, Whether the animation should be in a queue
	delay:0,     // Delay before the animation starts in milliseconds
	letterSpacing:0 // Number, space between each character
}],{
	// The options given below will be applicable to every text created,
	// however they will not override the options set above.
	// They will work as secondary options.
	fontSize:24, // Number, size of the text
	strokeWidth:.5, // Width / Thickness of the stroke
	color:"black", // Color of the text
	duration:2000, // Number, Duration of the animation in milliseconds
	textAlign:"left", // String, text align, accepted values are left,center,right
	autoAnimation:true, // Boolean, Whether to animate the text automatically
	queued:true, // Boolean, Whether the animation should be in a queue
	letterSpacing:0
})

Methods

.ready(function)

Is used to execute a function when the font is loaded and the elements are created.

Any other method should be called inside the function.

---

.get(id)

If an id was given to the text during creation, it should be given as the argument. Otherwise, use the index of the text block.
Returns an object with properties characters and container.
characters is an array of SVG g elements, each representing a letter
and container is an SVG g wrapping the text block.

---

.draw(id)

Used to animate texts with autoAnimation:false
If an id was given to the text during creation, it should be given as the argument. Otherwise, use the index of the text block.

---

.animationEnd(function(i, o){})

Used to execute a function once the animation ends, triggers every time a block of text is drawn. Has two arguments,

i – The id of the drawn text.

o – The object described in the get() method.

---

.playAll()

Introduced in v1.1.0

Is used to play the animation of every text block, obeying delay and queue.

Demo

Webpage | Examples | Codepen 1 | Codepen 2