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I'd like to draw symbols contained in exotic fonts such as Wingdings, Webdings (they are called dingbats : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat) in a java applet. When using Graphics.drawString() I end up with the typical 'square symbol' for each character in the drawn string. I could not find any answer by googling and I guess it's not something common.

In the past I've done it with C# WPF, failed to do it with SVG and HTML. Is it possible in java?

EDIT: Solved. There was a subtlety. Even though the symbol you want in such a font is linked to character 'a', it is in fact necessary to pass "\uF061" to g.drawString() and not "a". Otherwise you end up with the square symbol.

fury
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2 Answers2

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Solved. Even though the symbol you want in such a font is linked to character 'a', it is in fact necessary to pass "\uF061" to g.drawString() and not "a". Otherwise you end up with the square symbol.

fury
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Add the Font to a Jar (assuming you have the right to distribute it) that is on the run-time class-path of the applet. I.E. Add a reference to the Jar to the archive attribute of the applet element. Access it via (something like):

URL dingbatURL = this.getClass().getResource("/fonts/dingbat.ttf");

Then look to the Font methods for the createFont(int,InputStream) method.

Font dingbatFont = Font.createFont(Font.PLAIN,dingbatURL.openStream());

Thereafter is should be possible to use the Font in the Graphics instance.

Andrew Thompson
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  • Actually it is not a packaging problem, because I get the same problem when transforming the java applet to a JFrame. I should have mentionned that, sorry. Thank you for your answer as it has led me to the solution by looking further. – fury Jan 01 '12 at 07:33