How to determine the size of a string given a font.

Question

I have a small form that displays some progress information.
Very rarely I have to show a rather long message and I want to be able to resize this form when needed so that this message fits in the form.

So how do I find out how wide string S will be rendered in font F?

Answer 1

How about this:

Size stringsize = graphics.MeasureString("hello", myFont);

(Here is the MSDN link.)

Answer 2

Back in the Win32 I was using the equivalent for VisualStyleRenderer::GetTextExtent function for this.

Answer 3

It depends on the rendering engine being used. You can basically switch between GDI and GDI+. Switching can be done by setting the UseCompatibleTextRendering property accordingly

When using GDI+ you should use MeasureString:

string s = "A sample string";

SizeF size = e.Graphics.MeasureString(s, new Font("Arial", 24));

When using GDI (i.e. the native Win32 rendering) you should use the TextRenderer class:

SizeF size = TextRenderer.MeasureText(s, new Font("Arial", 24));

See this article: Text Rendering: Build World-Ready Apps Using Complex Scripts In Windows Forms Controls