imageloadfont

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

imageloadfont — Load a new font

Description

int imageloadfont ( string $file )

imageloadfont() loads a user-defined bitmap and returns its identifier.

Parameters

file

The font file format is currently binary and architecture dependent. This means you should generate the font files on the same type of CPU as the machine you are running PHP on.

**Font file format**
byte position	C data type	description
byte 0-3	int	number of characters in the font
byte 4-7	int	value of first character in the font (often 32 for space)
byte 8-11	int	pixel width of each character
byte 12-15	int	pixel height of each character
byte 16-	char	array with character data, one byte per pixel in each character, for a total of (ncharswidthheight) bytes.

Return Values

The font identifier which is always bigger than 5 to avoid conflicts with built-in fonts or FALSE on errors.

Examples

Example #1 imageloadfont() usage example


<?php
// Create a new image instance
$im = imagecreatetruecolor(50, 20);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);

// Make the background white
imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 49, 19, $white);

// Load the gd font and write 'Hello'
$font = imageloadfont('./04b.gdf');
imagestring($im, $font, 0, 0, 'Hello', $black);

// Output to browser
header('Content-type: image/png');

imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>


Working under the assumption that the only 'architecture dependant' part of the font files is endianness, I wrote a quick and dirty Python script to convert between the two. It has only been tested on a single font on a single machine so don't bet your life on it working. All it does is swap the byte order of the first four ints.



#!/usr/bin/env python



f = open("myfont.gdf", "rb");

d = open("myconvertedfont.gdf", "wb");



for i in xrange(4):

        b = [f.read(1) for j in xrange(4)];

        b.reverse();

        d.write(''.join(b));



d.write(f.read());



I successfully used this script to convert anonymous.gdf, from one of the font links below, into something useable on Mac OS X.

matthew at exanimo dot com
15-Aug-2005 08:28


Remember - GD fonts aren't antialiased.  If you're planning on using a pre-existing (TrueType) font, you may want to consider using imagettftext() instead of phillip's function.

alex at bestgames dot ro
02-Jul-2005 03:01


Confirmation code generation for preventing automated registrations on a website.



Function arguments are:

$code - the code that you shall random generate

$location - relative location of the image that shall be generated

$fonts_dir - relative location for the GDF fonts directory



This function will create an image with the code given by you and will save it in the directory specified with the name formed by MD5 hash of the code.



You may insert as many font types in the fonts directory as you wish, with random names.



<?php

function generate_image($code, $location, $fonts_dir)

{

     $image  = imagecreate(150, 60);           

     imagecolorallocate($image, rand(0, 100), rand(100, 150), rand(150, 250));

     $fonts = scandir($fonts_dir);

     

     $max = count($fonts) - 2;

     

     $width = 10;

     for ($i = 0; $i <= strlen($code); $i++)

     {     

         $textcolor = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);

         $rand = rand(2, $max);

         $font = imageloadfont($fonts_dir."/".$fonts[$rand]);

         

         $fh = imagefontheight($font);

         $fw = imagefontwidth($font);



         imagechar($image, $font, $width, rand(10, 50 - $fh), $code[$i], $textcolor);     

          $width = $width + $fw;

        

     }

             

     imagejpeg($image, $location."/".md5($code).".jpg", 100);

     imagedestroy($image);       

    

     return $code;

     

}



?>

puremango dot co dot uk at gmail dot com
22-Apr-2005 03:54


I've written an online tool in PHP that allows you to create GD fonts from PNG images.



much usefulness for custom font creation, I feel.



see the tool@

http://puremango.co.uk/cm_fontmaker_114.php

(source available online)

null at phpmix dot com
22-Dec-2004 07:59


Sometime ago I wrote a small tutorial on how to create dynamic signatures using gd_fonts. I also uploaded some gd_fonts...



You can check it out here, if you wish:

http://www.phpmix.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=328



Hope that helps

widget at oneblacksheep dot com
05-Jun-2004 03:41


After noting the gd fonts page from dryes58 above was down I contacted the him and have put the pages up at http://www.widgnet.com/gdf_fonts/ hows about that then =)

angryziber at mail dot com
23-Aug-2000 05:23


You all should look at the GD image library site for information on extra fonts, it can be found at http://www.boutell.com/gd/

add a note

imagepalettecopy

imageline

Last updated: Fri, 02 Jan 2009

imageloadfont

Description

Parameters

Return Values

Examples

See Also