#BIGWORDS.PAGE reference

BIGWORDS.PAGE shows a message as large as the screen allows. Everything about the display lives in the URL, so a link is the display. There are no accounts and no backend, and nothing is stored anywhere.

You can build every display by typing a URL by hand. The editor only makes that easier.

Try it: https://bigwords.page/#Hello%20World

#How the URL works

All state lives in the URL fragment, the part after #. Browsers never send the fragment to a server, so:

• the server never sees or logs your message,
• changing the fragment updates the display without reloading the page,
• one static page serves every possible display.

https://bigwords.page/#Hello%20World&bg=000000&fg=ffffff&anim=pulse

After the #:

#Hello%20World&bg=000000&fg=ffffff&anim=pulse
 └─ message ─┘ └──────── parameters ────────┘

The message is everything before the first unencoded &. Each segment after it is a key=value parameter.

The editor uses the same fragment at a different path:

Viewer:  https://bigwords.page/#Hello%20World&anim=pulse
Editor:  https://bigwords.page/editor#Hello%20World&anim=pulse

#Pages

Any non-empty fragment opens the viewer, even with no message. https://bigwords.page/#&bg=ff0000 is a solid red screen.

#Encoding

Use standard percent-encoding.

When typing by hand you only strictly need to encode spaces, new lines, & and %. The editor always produces fully encoded URLs.

#Parameters

An invalid value (bad hex, unknown font, impossible date…) quietly falls back to that parameter's default. The viewer never shows an error.

#Formatting

There is one rendering mode. A small markdown subset always applies; a message without any markdown just shows as plain text.

Nothing else: no lists, tables, links, quotes, images or rules. Remember that # must be written %23 in a URL: https://bigwords.page/#%23%20Gate%2012%0ABoarding%20now

Underscores inside words are left alone, as in standard Markdown, so names like Home_Guest_5G, snake_case or first_name@example.com show exactly as typed. Only an underscore at a word boundary starts or ends emphasis.

Code is shown exactly as typed. Nothing inside backticks is treated as formatting, a slide break, {countdown} or an escape, which makes it the easy way to show passwords and codes with symbols in them. A code span has to open and close on the same line. Browsers may write a typed backtick as %60 in the address bar; both forms work.

https://bigwords.page/#Price:%20~~$20~~%20**$15** · https://bigwords.page/#Wi-Fi:%20Home_Guest_5G%0APassword:%20%60x*7|q%60

#Special tokens

#Escapes

A backslash makes the next character literal.

A backslash before any other character is dropped. In a URL you can type the backslash as-is or as %5C.

Processing order: percent-decode → escapes and code spans → split slides on || → markdown → {countdown} → restore escaped characters.

#Fonts

All fonts ship with the site, each next to its license file. A font is only downloaded, from this site, when a display uses it. Nothing is loaded from third-party font services.

#Size

With size=auto (the default), the text grows to the largest size at which the whole block fits inside the display minus its padding. Headings count at their full size. Text wraps at word boundaries and your line breaks are always kept. The size is recalculated whenever the window is resized or rotated, and each slide is fitted on its own.

• size-max caps the size, however much room there is.
• size-min sets a floor. If the text would have to shrink below it, it stays at the minimum and scrolls.
• With neither, the size scales freely with the screen.

Example: https://bigwords.page/#Big%20but%20not%20huge&size-max=12vh

#Padding

pad is a percentage, written in CSS shorthand order. Top and bottom are a percentage of the display height; left and right are a percentage of its width. "Display" means the ratio region when one is set.

The three-value form isn't supported. Each value must be below 50.

#Colors

auto follows the viewer's light or dark setting: white on black in dark mode (and when it can't be detected), black on white in light mode. Set bg and fg independently as 6-digit hex without the #. If you set only one, the other stays auto.

https://bigwords.page/#Exit&bg=0a7a2f&fg=ffffff&font=4

#Animations

speed=slow|normal|fast applies to all of them. Compare slow, normal and fast pulses.

#Display ratio

Without ratio, the message fills the screen. With ratio=W:H it's drawn in a centered region of that shape, with the background color filling the rest. Useful for matching a projector or a video frame.

The editor also accepts a width × height in pixels and turns it into a ratio (1920 × 1080 → 16:9). Only the ratio goes in the URL.

#Countdown

Set until to an ISO 8601 date and time, then put {countdown} in the message. The time is the viewing device's local time, unless you add a zone such as Z or +02:00. The editor's date picker takes the time in your own time zone and writes it to the URL in UTC (with Z), so the countdown ends at the same moment everywhere. If the message is empty, the countdown is shown on its own.

Leading units are never dropped: three hours shows as 0d 03h 00m 00s.

https://bigwords.page/#Doors%20open%20in%0A{countdown}&until=2027-01-01T19:00:00&zero=Welcome!

#Slides

Separate slides with ||. All slides share every setting; each is fitted on its own and they slide in from the right every interval seconds.

https://bigwords.page/#Welcome!||Doors%20open%20in%0A{countdown}||Enjoy%20the%20show&until=2027-01-01T19:00:00&interval=8

The editor counts the URL's characters and warns as it nears about 2,000. Some messaging apps, email clients and proxies cut off longer links.

#QR code

qr takes a percent-encoded URL and draws its QR code in your browser. No outside service is used. qrpos puts it in a corner (tl, tr, bl, br) or centered below the text (below). It scales with the display and is always black on white with a quiet zone, so it scans whatever your colors are.

Encode any & inside the target URL as %26.

https://bigwords.page/#Scan%20me&qr=https://bigwords.page/docs&qrpos=below

#Image

img takes a public image URL (http, https or data:image).

The image loads straight from its host, which is never told which page asked for it. Like any image on the web, the host does see the viewing device's IP address and browser, and with refresh it sees a request every time the page reloads. Some hosts refuse to serve images to other sites, so an image that opens fine in its own tab can still fail here. If an image fails, the viewer simply leaves it out; the editor shows a warning.

refresh=N reloads the page every N seconds. It's only useful when the image URL points at something that changes, such as a webcam snapshot.

#Viewer behavior

• Screen wake: with wake=on (the default) the viewer asks the browser to keep the screen on. It asks again whenever the tab becomes visible. Browsers without support ignore it.
• Fullscreen: the viewer never asks for fullscreen and has no controls. Use your browser's or kiosk's own fullscreen mode.
• Tab title: always BIGWORDS.PAGE, whatever the message.
• Errors: never shown. Bad parameters use defaults; failed images are left out.

#The editor

The editor shows a live preview that renders exactly what the viewer shows, plus controls for every parameter.

• The address bar always mirrors the current state, without filling your history.
• Editing the fragment in the address bar updates the controls.
• Copy URL copies the viewer URL (the same fragment without /editor). Open viewer opens it in a new tab.
• Parameters left at their defaults are dropped from the URL to keep it short.

#Privacy

The message and settings live only in the URL fragment, which browsers do not send to servers. The hosted site may use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and never sees the fragment. Self-hosted Docker builds include no analytics.

#Reporting abuse

Anyone can make a display, and nothing about it is stored on the server, so BIGWORDS.PAGE can't see or remove what other people put in their links. If you find a link on bigwords.page used for phishing, scams or impersonation, email abuse@bigwords.page with the full link, including everything after the #.

#Self-hosting

The build is a folder of static files. Any static host works if it serves index.html for /, editor.html for /editor, docs.html for /docs, and 404.html with status 404 for any other path. Set SITE_URL to your own origin when building (for example SITE_URL=https://signs.example.com npm run build), so canonical URLs, social cards and the sitemap point at your site instead of bigwords.page. A Docker image based on Caddy is included in the repository:

docker compose up -d --build

The container listens on port 80 inside its network and publishes no ports by default. Put it behind your reverse proxy, which handles TLS.