My problem:
I'm currently working on a custom user control which displays pieces of text (each with a potentially different font) on one line. I'd like to align all those bits of text exactly along a common baseline. For example:
Hello, I am George.
------------------------------ <- all text aligns to a common baseline
^ ^ ^
| | |
Courier Arial Times <- font used for a particular bit of text
20pt 40pt 30pt
Because I haven't found any GDI+ functionality to do this directly, I came up with my own method (outlined below). However:
I wonder if there really isn't an easier way to get this done?
My current approach:
1) Gather a list of all System.Drawing.Font
s that will be used for drawing text.
2) For each Font
, find the vertical position of the baseline in pixels, using the following code:
// variables used in code sample (already set)
Graphics G;
Font font;
...
// compute ratio in order to convert from font design units to pixels:
var designUnitsPerPixel = font.GetHeight(G) /
font.FontFamily.GetLineSpacing(font.Style);
// get the cell ascent (baseline) position in design units:
var cellAscentInDesignUnits = font.FontFamily.GetCellAscent(font.Style);
// finally, convert the baseline position to pixels:
var baseLineInPixels = cellAscentInDesignUnits * designUnitsPerPixel;
3) For all Font
s used, determine the maximum baseLineInPixels
value as computed above and store this value to maxBaseLineInPixels
.
4) Draw each bit of text in the following manner:
// variables used in code sample (already set):
Graphics G;
Font font;
string text;
...
// find out how much space is needed for drawing the text
var measureF = G.MeasureString(text, font);
// determine location where text will be drawn:
var layoutRectF = new RectangleF(new PointF(0f, 0f), measureF);
layoutRectF.Y += maxBaseLineInPixels - baseLineInPixels;
// ^ the latter value 'baseLineInPixels' is specific to the font used
// draw text at specified location
G.DrawString(text, font, Brushed.Black, layoutRectF);
Am I missing something, or is there really no easier way?