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I have a label with AutoEllipsis = true and TextAlign = ContentAlignment.MiddleLeft. When I enter a text that is not extending the label width, the text is vertically aligned to the middle of the label.

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However, when the text extends the label width the text is not aligned to the middle, but top aligned instead.

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Why is it behaving this way, and is there a way to keep the text vertically center aligned?

Robin
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3 Answers3

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I see it. This looks like a limitation in the underlying winapi, DrawTextEx(). Which doesn't get a lot of help from the Label class, it doesn't turn on the DT_SINGLELINE option (aka TextFormatFlags.SingleLine) since it is capable of rendering multiple lines. DrawTextEx() documents that this is required to get vertically centered text (DT_VCENTER). So the real bug is that it shouldn't be centered at all :) Do note that you do get centered text when you grow the label vertically.

The simplest way to work around it is by setting the label's UseCompatibleTextRendering property to True.

Hans Passant
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  • Are there any obvious negative side effects to setting UseCompatibleTextRendering to true? – russelrillema Oct 04 '22 at 11:29
  • Depends on font, size and monitor resolution. If you can't see it then it is not obvious. – Hans Passant Oct 04 '22 at 11:35
  • I see according to documentation it changes the renderer from TextRenderer to Graphics. So it will be less precise. But for general use should be fine. Thanks... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.label.usecompatibletextrendering?view=windowsdesktop-6.0 – russelrillema Oct 04 '22 at 14:33
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What I have done is set the top and bottom of the margin property to 3 and it worked well. So have your margin be (3,3,3,3)!

Nolemonpledge
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0

One way to solve this is by implementing a custom control that overrides the OnPaint method and does not call the base method.

public class LabelEx : Label {
    protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) {
        var flags = TextFormatFlags.SingleLine | TextFormatFlags.VerticalCenter | TextFormatFlags.WordEllipsis;
        TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, Text, Font, ClientRectangle, ForeColor, flags);
    }
}

One catch is that added event handlers will be ignored. (as a result of omitting the call to the base method)

Taken from here.

Lombra
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