imageftbbox

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.7, PHP 5, PHP 7)

imageftbbox — Give the bounding box of a text using fonts via freetype2

Description

array imageftbbox ( float $size , float $angle , string $fontfile , string $text [, array $extrainfo ] )

This function calculates and returns the bounding box in pixels for a FreeType text.

Parameters

size

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

angle

Angle in degrees in which text will be measured.

fontfile

The name of the TrueType font file (can be a URL). Depending on which version of the GD library that PHP is using, it may attempt to search for files that do not begin with a leading '/' by appending '.ttf' to the filename and searching along a library-defined font path.

text

The string to be measured.

extrainfo

**Possible array indexes for `extrainfo`**
Key	Type	Meaning
linespacing	float	Defines drawing linespacing

Return Values

imageftbbox() returns an array with 8 elements representing four points making the bounding box of the text:

0	lower left corner, X position
1	lower left corner, Y position
2	lower right corner, X position
3	lower right corner, Y position
4	upper right corner, X position
5	upper right corner, Y position
6	upper left corner, X position
7	upper left corner, Y position

The points are relative to the text regardless of the angle, so "upper left" means in the top left-hand corner seeing the text horizontally.

Examples

Example #1 imageftbbox() example


<?php
// Create a 300x150 image
$im = imagecreatetruecolor(300, 150);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);

// Set the background to be white
imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 299, 299, $white);

// Path to our font file
$font = './arial.ttf';

// First we create our bounding box
$bbox = imageftbbox(10, 0, $font, 'The PHP Documentation Group');

// This is our cordinates for X and Y
$x = $bbox[0] + (imagesx($im) / 2) - ($bbox[4] / 2) - 5;
$y = $bbox[1] + (imagesy($im) / 2) - ($bbox[5] / 2) - 5;

imagefttext($im, 10, 0, $x, $y, $black, $font, 'The PHP Documentation Group');

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

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

Notes

Note: This function requires GD 2.0.1 or later (2.0.28 or later is recommended).

Note: This function is only available if PHP is compiled with freetype support (--with-freetype-dir=DIR )

User Contributed Notes

theo v e -2

10 years ago


ah... the problem between imageftbbox() and imagefttext() lies in the mirroring of the y-axes.
Below you see, for a font-size 16 the boudingboxes of "b", "p" and "bp":
< b: w=9 h=15
b(0,-1)
b(9,-1)
b(9,-16)
b(0,-16)
< p: w=9 h=16
p(0,4)
p(9,4)
p(9,-12)
p(0,-12)
< bp: w=20 h=20
bp(0,4)
bp(20,4)
bp(20,-16)
bp(0,-16)
If drawing "bp" using imagefttext() at y=0, the the top of "bp" indeed is at y=-16, and the bottom of "bp" at y=4. (Plus or minus a pixel here and there, because at y=0 there actually is a vissible pixel.)

fernando

10 years ago


imagettfbbox() returns an array with 8 elements representing four points making the bounding box of the text: 

0 lower left corner, X position 
1 lower left corner, Y position 
2 lower right corner, X position 
3 lower right corner, Y position 
4 upper right corner, X position 
5 upper right corner, Y position 
6 upper left corner, X position 
7 upper left corner, Y position 

The points are relative to the text regardless of the angle, so "upper left" means in the top left-hand corner seeing the text horizontally.

groomed at users dot sf dot net

11 years ago


ImageFTBBox returns a bounding box, not metrics, as some (most?) of the notes above seem to assume. The 8 values it returns specify the 4 corners of this bounding box. So to properly determine the width and height of a string you need to do:

$bbox = ImageFTBBox(...);
$width = abs($bbox[0]) + abs($bbox[2]); // distance from left to right
$height = abs($bbox[1]) + abs($bbox[5]); // distance from top to bottom

sectionthirty1 at yahoo dot com

12 years ago


Here is a handy example I used to center "dynamic text" onto an image.  

Ex. Say you want to center a clients IP Address onto a picture.  

$ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];    

$details = imageftbbox($fontsize, 0, $font, $ip, array("linespacing" => 1));

$xcoord = ($imgwidth - $details[4]) / 2;  // this will return the x coordinate centered to your specific image.  Make sure  you set $imgwidth to the width of the image you are using.      

imagettftext($image, $fontsize, 0, $xcoord, $ycoord, $fontcolor, $font, $ip);

ta at NOSPAM dot magicsquare dot info

13 years ago


i've found a work around for this situation

it seems that height is directly proportional to line spacing so you just have to apply the same factor to image height

for example :

$spacing = 0.7;
$params = array("linespacing" => $spacing);

$box = imageftbbox ($size, 0, $font, $text, $params);
$tw=$box[4]-$box[0]; //image width
$th=($box[1]-$box[5])*$spacing; //image height

phpimageftbbox at juggernaut dot com dot au

13 years ago


This function can be used to generate right-aligned text. Just work out how wide the text image is and position it accordingly. Example:

$i_width  = 200;
$i_height = 40;

$string = "Hello World!";
$pointsize = 10;
$fontfile = "/usr/local/lib/ttf/Helve.ttf";

$im = imagecreate($i_width, $i_height);
$black = imagecolorallocate ($im, 0, 0, 0);
$white = imagecolorallocate ($im, 255, 255, 255);

$string_size = ImageFtBbox($pointsize, 0, $fontfile, $string, array("linespacing" => 1));
$s_width  = $string_size[4];
$s_height = $string_size[5];

ImageFtText($im, $pointsize, 0, $i_width - $s_width - 1,  0 - $s_height, $white, $fontfile, $string, array("linespacing" => 1));

Header ("Content-type: image/png");
ImagePNG ($im);
ImageDestroy ($im);

Brian at PrintsMadeEasy dot com

13 years ago


I noticed that PHP's True Type functions do not allow you to create text blocks with multiple lines that automatically adjust for alignment.  I wrote a function that will allow you to generate images with multiple lines, control the alignment, and handle rotation.  I hope it helps someone.

There was too much code to paste on this message post so you can grab it off of my webserver.  I also created an example page so that you can see the code in action.

Example Page:
http://www.PrintsMadeEasy.com/code_samples/php/text_generation.php

Download the Text file:
http://www.PrintsMadeEasy.com /code_samples/php/text_generation.txt

Johan

8 years ago


For alignment i used this method:

if($align == "center" || $align == "right")
    {
        $verticaltxtspace = $backwidth - (2 * $posx);        
        $spacepositions = imagettfbbox($size, $angle, "fonts/verdanaz.ttf", " ");         
        $spacepx = $spacepositions[4] - $spacepositions[0];        
        
        // Split text in lines
        $lines = split("[\r][\n]", $text);        
        for($count = 0; $count < count($lines); $count++)
        {
            $textpositions = imagettfbbox($size, $angle, "fonts/verdanaz.ttf", $lines[$count]);            
            $textpx = $textpositions[2] - $textpositions[0];
            
            if($align == "right")
            {
                $spaces = ($verticaltxtspace - $textpx) / $spacepx;
            }
            else if($align == "center")
            {
                $spaces = (($verticaltxtspace - $textpx)/2) / $spacepx;
            }
            
            // Add spaces
            $line = $lines[$count];
            for($i = 0; $i < $spaces; $i++)
            {
                $line = " " . $line;
            }
            $lines[$count] = $line;
        }
        
        // Create new text of lines
        $text = "";
        for($count = 0; $count < count($lines); $count++)
        {
            $text .= $lines[$count] . "\r\n";
        }        
    }
    
        
    //    Draw the shadow text on de shadow
    imagettftext($background, $size, $angle, $posx, $posy, $textcolor, "fonts/verdanaz.ttf",  $text);