Anti-aliasing text in Windows Forms

Question

I have a WinForms form, and would like to make it so that all text (e.g. labels, buttons) is anti-aliased. This is driving me crazy because I can't find anything on google, which either means it's so obvious or I'm way off-base.

My best idea has been to override OnPaint in my main form, but this doesn't seem to change anything.

protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) {
    e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias;
    base.OnPaint(e);
}

Help!

Answer 1

If I remember correctly, anti-aliasing only works when calling DrawString on the Graphics object, after you set the anti-aliasing mode as you described in your answer.

Standard WinForms controls don't use this method, so a simple override won't work.

Answer 2

This is because what you did only affects text drawn directly on the form. I guess you would have to override OnPaint in user controls subclassing labels, buttons, etc.

Answer 3

It sounds like you don't want anti-aliasing so much as sub-pixel rendering which is used by ClearType. More specifically you may want to check out the TextRenderingHint Enumeration member ClearTypeGridFit.