Taetype-WASM Brings a Pure-Rust, Unsafe-Free Font Engine to Browsers

Taetype-WASM is a WebAssembly build of taetype, a memory-safe, pure-Rust font engine (zero unsafe code, zero native dependencies) that now runs entirely client-side. It handles decoding TTF/OTF/TTC files, instancing variable fonts across the full OpenType Variations and CFF2 models, subsetting with GSUB/GPOS/GDEF rewriting rather than dropping, HarfBuzz-equivalent shaping via rustybuzz, a from-scratch CPU rasterizer, full COLR/CPAL color-font support, and complete MATH table typesetting.

Because it wraps the same native engine published as a Rust crate, the WASM package produces identical glyph IDs, advances, and subset output — just exposed through an npm package and a Font class instead of Rust APIs. Memory management is explicit: returned structs must be freed manually or via the using syntax in environments supporting Symbol.dispose, mirroring how you'd manage a native resource handle.

For engineers, this removes the need for server round-trips or native binaries to do serious font work — subsetting, shaping, rasterizing, or rendering math and color glyphs — directly in the browser, with Rust's memory-safety guarantees intact.