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Does anyone know how to change the kerning (space between characters) in vb.net? For example, i would like to change "STRING" to "S T R I N G". If possible i would like to be able to create my own font where i can specify the kerning as i wish! Thanks in advance!

Will Vousden
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craig
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    How are you displaying the string? Kerning is a property of the typeface, not the string, so it depends entirely on the system that's rendering it. – Will Vousden Jan 27 '10 at 11:06
  • Its rather like character spacing – YOU Jan 27 '10 at 11:08
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    @S.Mark: Similar, but different. The idea behind kerning is that it tries to improve the consistency of visual gaps that arise from the shapes of the symbols themselves, and is typically different for each pair of adjacent symbols. For this reason you need either an algorithm to assign the kerning values for you or to do it manually. Maybe the OP was just talking about tracking (character spacing). – Will Vousden Jan 27 '10 at 11:11
  • currently using drawstring() to display data in a program. I want to be able to change the data being "drawn" so that the spacing between characters is bigger and therefore easier to read. I do not want to change font size, just change the horizontal spacing between characters. Any ideas? – craig Jan 27 '10 at 11:31

2 Answers2

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The only way I found is to P/Invoke. Assumming a generic form with a generic button this code will work.

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Public Class Form1
    Declare Function SetTextCharacterExtra Lib "gdi32" Alias "SetTextCharacterExtra" (ByVal hDC As Integer, ByVal nCharExtra As Integer) As Integer
    <DllImport("gdi32")> _
    Private Shared Function TextOut(ByVal hdc As IntPtr, ByVal x As Integer, ByVal y As Integer, ByVal textstring As String, ByVal charCount As Integer) As Boolean
    End Function
    <DllImport("gdi32")> _
    Private Shared Function SelectObject(ByVal hdc As IntPtr, ByVal hgdiobj As IntPtr) As IntPtr
    End Function
    <DllImport("gdi32")> _
    Private Shared Function DeleteObject(ByVal objectHandle As IntPtr) As Boolean
    End Function
    <DllImport("gdi32")> _
    Private Shared Function SetBkColor(ByVal hdc As IntPtr, ByVal crColor As Integer) As UInt32
    End Function
    <DllImport("gdi32")> _
    Private Shared Function SetTextColor(ByVal hdc As IntPtr, ByVal crColor As Integer) As UInt32
    End Function

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Using G = Graphics.FromHwnd(Me.Handle)
            Using myFont As New System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 20, FontStyle.Regular, GraphicsUnit.Pixel)
                'Regular Way
                Dim LeftEdge = 20
                G.DrawString("Hello", myFont, Brushes.Red, LeftEdge, 40)

                'If you want kerning
                Dim Kerning As Integer = 6 'I think this is twips
                Dim Hdc As IntPtr
                Dim FontPtr As IntPtr
                Try
                    'Grab the Graphic object's handle
                    Hdc = G.GetHdc()
                    'Set the current GDI font
                    FontPtr = SelectObject(Hdc, myFont.ToHfont())
                    'Set the drawing surface background color
                    SetBkColor(Hdc, ColorTranslator.ToWin32(Me.BackColor))
                    'Set the text color
                    SetTextColor(Hdc, ColorTranslator.ToWin32(Color.Red))
                    'Set the kerning
                    SetTextCharacterExtra(Hdc, Kerning)
                    Dim Text = "Hello"
                    'Draw the text at (20,60), Kerning will be applied so reset the left edge to half of kerning
                    TextOut(Hdc, LeftEdge + (Kerning \ 2), 60, Text, Text.Length)
                Catch ex As Exception

                Finally
                    'Release the font
                    DeleteObject(FontPtr)
                    'Release the handle on the graphics object
                    G.ReleaseHdc()
                End Try
            End Using
        End Using
    End Sub
End Class
Chris Haas
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-3

You can use CSS. I usually set the letter-spacing style attribute in my aspx page.

CoolBeans
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Gianluca
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