// Hacker Noon · 30 March 2026

Pretext Does What CSS Can't — Measuring Text Before the DOM Even Exists

Pretext is a new JS/TS library from Cheng Lou (React core, react-motion, Midjourney) that calculates multiline text height without DOM reflow. It splits work into a one-time prepare() pass via off-screen canvas, then a pure-arithmetic layout() hot path that runs in ~0.09ms. The result: accurate pre-...

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