Free tool
Chinese Stroke Order Animation Generator
Enter one Chinese character or a short sentence, watch every stroke appear in standard order, and download the finished animation as a GIF or MP4.
About this tool
A static character shows the finished shape, but it does not show how that shape is built. This generator reveals each stroke in sequence, which makes it useful for handwriting demonstrations, flashcards, classroom slides and short teaching videos.
Single character mode gives one character the full canvas. Sentence mode places up to twelve characters in practice grids and writes them from left to right. The timing, colours and layout are fixed so you can make a clean result without adjusting export settings.
Everything is rendered in your browser. Your text and the generated animation are not uploaded or stored; the finished GIF or MP4 is downloaded directly to your device.
What it does
Single character mode
Give one character a large 512-pixel practice grid so every stroke direction and overlap remains easy to see.
Sentence mode
Arrange two to twelve Chinese characters in a fixed grid and animate them one after another in reading order.
GIF and MP4 downloads
Use GIF for easy embedding in flashcards and documents, or MP4 for a smaller, smoother video when the browser supports H.264 encoding.
Standard stroke-order data
The animation uses the same Make Me a Hanzi data and Hanzi Writer rendering system as the character pages on this site.
Simplified and traditional characters
Both writing systems work when stroke data exists for the character; there is no automatic character conversion.
Private browser-side rendering
Animation frames are composed and encoded on your device rather than sending your text or video to a rendering server.
How to use it
- 1Choose a modeUse Single character for one large character, or Sentence for a sequence of two to twelve characters.
- 2Enter Chinese textType or paste the character or sentence. Punctuation and Latin text are ignored because they do not have Chinese stroke-order data.
- 3Generate and check the previewThe tool loads the required stroke data and plays the complete animation once in the fixed practice-grid layout.
- 4Download the animationChoose GIF, or choose MP4 when your browser supports H.264 encoding. Export runs in a background worker, so you may switch tabs while it finishes.
What people use it for
- Adding animated stroke order to Anki and other flashcard decks
- Preparing handwriting demonstrations for Chinese lessons
- Making short pronunciation and writing videos for social media
- Showing the construction of a name, idiom or vocabulary item
- Creating a visual reference before practising a character by hand
Frequently asked questions
Does the tool support both simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes. It can animate simplified and traditional characters whenever the underlying stroke-order dataset contains that character. It preserves exactly what you enter and does not convert between the two systems.
How long can a sentence be?
Sentence mode accepts up to twelve Chinese characters. Keeping the sequence short makes every practice grid readable and prevents GIF files from becoming excessively large.
What happens to punctuation, numbers and English text?
They are ignored during animation. The tool extracts Han characters from the input because punctuation, digits and Latin letters do not have Chinese stroke-order data.
Why is the MP4 button unavailable in my browser?
MP4 export depends on native browser support for WebCodecs H.264 encoding. When that support is missing, the tool disables MP4 rather than creating a differently formatted file with an incorrect extension. GIF remains available.
Which format should I use?
GIF is convenient for flashcards, messaging and pages that need an automatically looping animation. MP4 usually produces a smaller file with smoother motion and is better for presentations and video editors.
Why can a rare character be skipped?
A small number of rare or historical characters are not present in the stroke-order dataset. Single character mode reports the missing character; sentence mode skips unsupported characters and tells you which ones were omitted.
Is my text uploaded or saved?
No. The browser downloads small stroke-data files, then renders and encodes the animation locally. Your input and generated file are not sent to this site's server or saved in a database.
Blogs and further reading
In-depth articles covering the background behind this tool.
Other Chinese tools
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