PHP: True Type Fonts

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

While waiting for db server 0002 to be fixed, I thought I'd try to learn how to use PHP to create true type font images and wrote this code:

<?php
header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
$im = ImageCreate(350,70);
$red = ImageColorAllocate($im, 0xFF, 0x00, 0x00);
$black = ImageColorAllocate($im, 0x00,0x00,0x00);
imagettftext($im, 20, 0,10,40, $black,'times.ttf','The TIMES TTF font');
ImageJPEG($im);
ImageJPEG($im,"myttf.jpg");
imagedestroy($im);
?>

The code doesn't work and I'm not sure why but I think it has s.thing to do with the imagettftext() and not having the correct path to times.ttf. So, if anyone has any ideas about how to make this work, I'd be very pleased to know.

Incidentally, I'm at f2s and they are using GD 1.62.

-- php4ever

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

Just figured out what was wrong with above code and thought I'd share since a) I posed the question and b) apparently I'm not the only one who's experienced difficulties getting TTF fonts to work w/PHP.

So, what was wrong with the code above is that it needed a full path to the font. Even when I re-uploaded the font times.ttf and put it in the same directory as the php script, it refused to work. Also, when I tried to hard-code the complete url to the font it failed. However, when I used the $DOCUMENT_ROOT variable in the path to the font, then it worked.

Here's my revised code, which includes some renamed vars and a color change in addition to using a valid path to the font:

<?php
header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
$im = ImageCreate(350,70);
$bcolor = ImageColorAllocate($im, 0xFF, 0x00, 0x00);
$fcolor = ImageColorAllocate($im, 0xFF,0xFF,0xFF);
imagettftext($im, 20, 0,10,40, $fcolor,"$DOCUMENT_ROOT/fonts/times.ttf",'The TIMES TTF font');
ImageJPEG($im);
ImageJPEG($im,'myttf.jpg');
imagedestroy($im);
?>

and the url is:
http://www.preservestaffnow.org/expfont.php

Here's 2 more ptrs: when you upload a true type font file it should be uploaded as a binary.
And, make sure to use imagedestroy() at end of your script to free up memory on the server.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

When I run the above script at f2s, it does output the image to the browser but it won't output the image to a file and I'm not sure why. Is it b/c f2s uses GD1.6.2 instead of GD1.8 or is this related to permissions or is this related to safe-mode. If anyone knows why, I'd like to be enlightened. Thanks.

Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2002 8:07 am (21 years, 9 months ago)

should be because of permissions. check the permissions of the script and the directory where the new file is being created.
if file being written exists. check its permissions also.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

Thanks Jayant for your reply.

Okay, I changed the permissions on both the script and the directory so that a new jpg or png should be dynamically created and still I get nothing. Since apparently it's not a permissions thing, perhaps this inability arises due to safe-mode or the GD version @ f2s (1.6.2). In any event, I am unable to dynamically generate a png or a jpg altho' I can output those images via the browser. Confused

So, any more thoughts?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Try running the script out of safe mode (I think you can do that at F2S by changing the extension to .cgi and adding a line with the path to PHP at the top).

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

and it worked! Thank you, Daniel; I appreciate the tip. Very Happy

By changing to out-of-safe-mode, I was able to run one script that ouputted an image to a PNG file and another that outputted a different image to a JPG file.

Regards,
php4ever