PHP: imagettftext

Description

array imagettftext ( resource image, float size, float angle, int x, int y, int color, string fontfile, string text )

image

The image resource. See imagecreate().

size

The font size. Depending on your version of GD, this should be specified as the pixel size (GD1) or point size (GD2).

angle

The angle in degrees, with 0 degrees being left-to-right reading text. Higher values represent a counter-clockwise rotation. For example, a value of 90 would result in bottom-to-top reading text.

x

The coordinates given by x and y will define the basepoint of the first character (roughly the lower-left corner of the character). This is different from the imagestring(), where x and y define the upper-left corner of the first character. For example, "top left" is 0, 0.

y

The y-ordinate. This sets the position of the fonts baseline, not the very bottom of the character.

color

The color index. Using the negative of a color index has the effect of turning off antialiasing. See imagecolorallocate().

fontfile

The path to the TrueType font you wish to use.

Depending on which version of the GD library PHP is using, when fontfile does not begin with a leading / then .ttf will be appended to the filename and the library will attempt to search for that filename along a library-defined font path.

When using versions of the GD library lower than 2.0.18, a space character, rather than a semicolon, was used as the 'path separator' for different font files. Unintentional use of this feature will result in the warning message: Warning: Could not find/open font. For these affected versions, the only solution is moving the font to a path which does not contain spaces.

In many cases where a font resides in the same directory as the script using it the following trick will alleviate any include problems.

<?php // Set the enviroment variable for GD putenv('GDFONTPATH=' . realpath('.')); // Name the font to be used (note the lack of the .ttf extension) $font = 'SomeFont'; ?>

text

The text string.

May include decimal numeric character references (of the form: €) to access characters in a font beyond position 127. Strings in UTF-8 encoding can be passed directly.

If a character is used in the string which is not supported by the font, a hollow rectangle will replace the character.

imagettftext() returns an array with 8 elements representing four points making the bounding box of the text. The order of the points is lower left, lower right, upper right, upper left. The points are relative to the text regardless of the angle, so "upper left" means in the top left-hand corner when you see the text horizontally.

Example 1. imagettftext() example
This example script will produce a white PNG 400x30 pixels, with the words "Testing..." in black (with grey shadow), in the font Arial.

<?php // Set the content-type header("Content-type: image/png"); // Create the image $im = imagecreate(400, 30); // Create some colors $white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255); $grey = imagecolorallocate($im, 128, 128, 128); $black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0); // The text to draw $text = 'Testing...'; // Replace path by your own font path $font = 'arial.ttf'; // Add some shadow to the text imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 11, 21, $grey, $font, $text); // Add the text imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 10, 20, $black, $font, $text); // Using imagepng() results in clearer text compared with imagejpeg() imagepng($im); imagedestroy($im); ?>

This function requires both the GD library and the FreeType library.

See also imagettfbbox().

User Contributed Notes
imagettftext

gerritvg at gmail dot com
19-May-2005 02:24


The ImageTTFText() function alway work correct. Until the've installed GD version 2.0.23 on the server.

The quality of the generated buttons is much lower.

nick
01-Apr-2005 03:18


A trivial function to get right or centre aligned horizontal text:



function imagettftextalign($image, $size, $angle, $x, $y, $color, $font, $text, $alignment='L') {

    

    //check width of the text

    $bbox = imagettfbbox ($size, $angle, $font, $text);

    $textWidth = $bbox[2] - $bbox[0];

    switch ($alignment) {

        case "R":

            $x -= $textWidth; 

            break;

        case "C":

            $x -= $textWidth / 2;

            break;

    }

        

    //write text

    imagettftext ($image, $size, $angle, $x, $y, $color, $font, $text);



}

erik[at]phpcastle.com
04-Mar-2005 06:46


Remember!!!



When uploading a font to your website you have to set the transfer mode to binary. It took me some time to find out :P. Tried to download the font from my website and it was spoiled.



In your script, the path to your font, use realpath("arial.ttf") so there is no confusion about that.

pillepop2003 at nospam dot yahoo dot de
12-Jan-2005 07:14


Hey guys,



check this function if you want to rotate the text around its center and not its "lower left" pivot-point:



<?php

        // Put center-rotated ttf-text into image

        // Same signature as imagettftext();

        function imagettftext_cr(&$im, $size, $angle, $x, $y, $color, $fontfile, $text)

        {

            // retrieve boundingbox

            $bbox = imagettfbbox($size, $angle, $fontfile, $text);

            

            // calculate deviation

            $dx = ($bbox[2]-$bbox[0])/2.0 - ($bbox[2]-$bbox[4])/2.0;         // deviation left-right

            $dy = ($bbox[3]-$bbox[1])/2.0 + ($bbox[7]-$bbox[1])/2.0;        // deviation top-bottom

            

            // new pivotpoint

            $px = $x-$dx;

            $py = $y-$dy;

            

            return imagettftext($im, $size, $angle, $px, $py, $color, $fontfile, $text);

        }



?>



Big up

Phil

Paul Reinheimer
20-Sep-2004 05:33


If you compiled PHP yourself but get an error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function imagettftext().



You need to compile PHP with more options.



--with-gd

--enable-gd-native-ttf

--with-png

--with-zlib-dir=/usr/local/lib/zlib-1.2.1

--with-ttf

--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib/jpeg-6b/

--with-freetype-dir=/usr/local/lib/freetype-2.1.9/

--with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6/



The next set deal with setting up GD, and the appropriate options. Just enabling GD, ttf, png & jpeg is NOT enough. You also need Freetype and XPM.

plusplus7 at hotmail dot com
15-Jul-2004 03:37


If you are getting all rectangles instead of text, it may well mean that your ttf font is not opentype, particularly if it is an older freeware one. This requirement didn't exist in older versions so you may find that your font stops working after you upgrade. To fix this problem, try downloading the free MS Volt utility. From there, open your font file, and then click on Compile, and resave.

02-Dec-2002 01:13


If you have an older version of the GD library, but wish to use a font file which has spaces in the path, you should convert the path into DOS style names. This will only work on windows.





For example:


C:\reallylongpath\reallylongpath\font.ttf


Would become:


C:\really~1\really~1\font.ttf

imacs at email dot com
06-Apr-2000 04:16


To make it support chinese and japanese fonts, have a look here.


* http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/12/27/946305846.html