Difference between a GDI and GDI+ font?

Fonts and More General Font Discussions
1

Hello,

I am trying to use a font in Visual Basic 2008 and it will not display correctly. I created the font with FontCreator 5.5.

I did some research into the problem and came up with this:

“Visual Basic uses GDI fonts, not GDI+ fonts”

What does this mean?
How do I correct my font to make it a GDI font?

Thank you in advance,

ED

2

I don’t know the difference but I don’t think it’s relevant. Nowadays all software running on Windows support TrueType fonts, OpenType fonts and TrueType font Collections. We might be able to help if you describe the exact problem.

3

Hello,

Thank you for the quick response.

I am developing a custom application that uses a vendor provided font. This font needs to be embedded inside the application and not installed on the users system. The vendor does not want the font available to the public. I have made some changes to this font using FontCreator 5.5. The original font will not work embedded in the application either.

However if the font (original or modified) is installed on the users machine it works fine.

The problem I am having is that the font will not load correctly in Visual Basic labels and text boxes.

Here is a thread that sort of describes the problem I am having. The second post is the one the makes reference to GDI and GDI+ fonts.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=542664&SiteID=1

Thank you again for any help,

ED

4

I don’t think this problem is related to FontCreator, so I’ve moved this topic to the “General Font Discussions” forum.

This remark taken from thePrivateFontCollection.AddMemoryFont method should help:

To use the memory font, text on a control must be rendered with GDI+. Use the SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault method, passing true, to set GDI+ rendering on the application, or on individual controls by setting the control’s UseCompatibleTextRendering property to true. Some controls cannot be rendered with GDI+.

5

Hello,

Thank you.

I will look into "UseCompatibleTextRendering " further.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for moving this to the correct forum.

ED

6

I do not know the answer to this problem myself.

However, I do know that there is a very knowledgeable gentleman who works for Microsoft who runs a blog about various matters.

http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/

I searched for GDI and found 95 matches in the archives.

There are also ways to contact him directly, including the Suggest a Topic! page.

Searching for GDI font gave 313 matches in the archives, though references containing both may be nearer the top.

Searching for GDI AND font gave 72 results.

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

4 February 2008