StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

POAccurately measuring, rendering, hit testing and printing text in a WinForms application
text
Body
copied!<p>We need to:</p> <ol> <li>Measure text accurately.</li> <li>Render text line by line to a screen graphics context in the presence of translation and scaling transforms applied to the graphics context.</li> <li>Hit testing: allow text to be selected precisely with the mouse or via a displayed caret.</li> <li>Print the result if needed, and as accurately as possible, with a printer. <em>Note:</em> this is secondary. Screen rendering and hit testing are primary.</li> <li>Run on Windows XP and higher operating systems.</li> </ol> <p>within a WinForms application that is also rendering graphics and images to the same graphics context.</p> <p>There are four technologies that we've encountered. We've tried using the first two, and ran into the issues described, over the course of several months.</p> <h2>GDI+</h2> <p>Purportedly resolution-independent text. However according to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7268238/drawing-text-in-net/7269191">this question</a> - and other sources - this technology is to be avoided because of quality issues. </p> <p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6xe5hazb(VS.80).aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MSDN</a> states that calling Graphics.MeasureString along with <code>StringFormat.GenericTypographic</code> and <code>TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias</code> produces accurate string measurement. However, in our experience, and that of others, this is not the case - we do not get accurate string measurements.</p> <ul> <li>Pros: Fast</li> <li>Cons: inaccurate string measurement.</li> </ul> <p>Result: unusable because of inaccurate string measurement.</p> <h2>GDI via TextRenderer</h2> <p>This was introduced to overcome the limitations of GDI+. However this introduced limitations of its own:</p> <ul> <li>Very slow</li> <li>Does <a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/zh/winforms/thread/9a2d277d-340b-4d39-9cd0-f59fa9719aa1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">not work with</a> graphics transforms</li> </ul> <p>Result: unusuable for these reasons</p> <h2>GDI via p/invoke</h2> <p>Calling <code>GetTextExtentExPoint</code> for text measurement and <code>DrawText</code> / <code>DrawTextEx</code> / <code>ExtTextOut</code> for rendering.</p> <p>We haven't tried this yet.</p> <h2>DirectWrite</h2> <p>This seems promising, since it interoperates with other technologies including GDI/GDI+, so presumably the rest of our graphics rendering wouldn't change. However it is only available for Windows Vista and more recent Windows versions. This is presently a problem since Windows XP still has a significant installed base. </p> <h1>Question</h1> <p>Which of these technologies can be made to work given the requirements? </p> <p><em>Note:</em> There's much misinformation about this topic floating around, so please answer this question only if you have expertise in this area. Also, please don't suggest WPF - that isn't something we're considering using.</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload