pygame.freetype

Enhanced pygame module for loading and rendering computer fonts

The pygame.freetype module is a replacement for pygame.font. It has all of the functionality of the original, plus many new features. Yet is has absolutely no dependencies on the SDL_ttf library. It is implemented directly on the FreeType 2 library. The pygame.freetype module is not itself backward compatible with pygame.font. Instead, use the pygame.ftfont module as a drop-in replacement for pygame.font.

All font file formats supported by FreeType can be rendered by pygame.freetype, namely TTF, Type1, CFF, OpenType, SFNT, PCF, FNT, BDF, PFR and Type42 fonts. All glyphs having UTF-32 code points are accessible (see Font.ucs4).

Most work on fonts is done using Font instances. The module itself only has routines for initialization and creation of Font objects. You can load fonts from the system using the SysFont() function.

Extra support of bitmap fonts is available. Available bitmap sizes can be listed (see Font.get_sizes()). For bitmap only fonts Font can set the size for you (see the Font.size property).

For now undefined character codes are replaced with the .notdef (not defined) character. How undefined codes are handled may become configurable in a future release.

Pygame comes with a built-in default font. This can always be accessed by passing None as the font name to the Font constructor.

Extra rendering features available to pygame.freetype.Font are direct to surface rendering (see Font.render_to()), character kerning (see Font.kerning), vertical layout (see Font.vertical), rotation of rendered text (see Font.rotation), and the strong style (see Font.strong). Some properties are configurable, such as strong style strength (see Font.strength) and underline positioning (see Font.underline_adjustment). Text can be positioned by the upper right corner of the text box or by the text baseline (see Font.origin). Finally, a font's vertical and horizontal size can be adjusted separately (see Font.size). The pygame.examples.freetype_misc example shows these features in use.

The pygame package does not import freetype automatically when loaded. This module must be imported explicitly to be used.

import pygame
import pygame.freetype

The freetype module is new in pygame 1.9.2

pygame.freetype.get_error() -> str

Return the latest FreeType error

Return a description of the last error which occurred in the FreeType2 library, or None if no errors have occurred.

pygame.freetype.get_version() -> (int, int, int)

Return the FreeType version

Returns the version of the FreeType library in use by this module.

Note that the freetype module depends on the FreeType 2 library. It will not compile with the original FreeType 1.0. Hence, the first element of the tuple will always be "2".

pygame.freetype.init(cache_size=64, resolution=72)

Initialize the underlying FreeType library.

This function initializes the underlying FreeType library and must be called before trying to use any of the functionality of the freetype module.

However, pygame.init() will automatically call this function if the freetype module is already imported. It is safe to call this function more than once.

Optionally, you may specify a default cache_size for the Glyph cache: the maximum number of glyphs that will be cached at any given time by the module. Exceedingly small values will be automatically tuned for performance. Also a default pixel resolution, in dots per inch, can be given to adjust font scaling.

pygame.freetype.quit()

Shut down the underlying FreeType library.

This function closes the freetype module. After calling this function, you should not invoke any class, method or function related to the freetype module as they are likely to fail or might give unpredictable results. It is safe to call this function even if the module hasn't been initialized yet.

pygame.freetype.was_init() -> bool

Return whether the the FreeType library is initialized.

Returns whether the the FreeType library is initialized.

pygame.freetype.get_cache_size() -> long

Return the glyph case size

See pygame.freetype.init().

pygame.freetype.get_default_resolution() -> long

Return the default pixel size in dots per inch

Returns the default pixel size, in dots per inch, for the module. The default is 72 DPI.

pygame.freetype.set_default_resolution([resolution])

Set the default pixel size in dots per inch for the module

Set the default pixel size, in dots per inch, for the module. If the optional argument is omitted or zero the resolution is reset to 72 DPI.

pygame.freetype.SysFont(name, size, bold=False, italic=False) -> Font

create a Font object from the system fonts

Return a new Font object that is loaded from the system fonts. The font will match the requested bold and italic flags. If a suitable system font is not found, a default, Pygame, is returned instead. The font name can be a comma separated list of font names to search for.

pygame.freetype.get_default_font() -> string

Get the filename of the default font

Return the filename of the default pygame font. This is not the full path to the file. The file is usually in the same directory as the font module, but can also be bundled in a separate archive.

pygame.freetype.Font

Create a new Font instance from a supported font file.

Font(file, size=0, font_index=0, resolution=0, ucs4=False) -> Font

Argument file can be either a string representing the font's filename, a file-like object containing the font, or None; if None, a default, Pygame, font is used.

Optionally, a size argument may be specified to set the default size in points, which determines the size of the rendered characters. The size can also be passed explicitly to each method call. Because of the way the caching system works, specifying a default size on the constructor doesn't imply a performance gain over manually passing the size on each function call. If the font is bitmap and no size is given, the default size is set to the first available size for the font.

If the font file has more than one font, the font to load can be chosen with the index argument. An exception is raised for an out-of-range font index value.

The optional resolution argument sets the pixel size, in dots per inch, for use in scaling glyphs for this Font instance. If 0 then the default module value, set by init(), is used. The Font object's resolution can only be changed by re-initializing the Font instance.

The optional ucs4 argument, an integer, sets the default text translation mode: 0 (False) recognize UTF-16 surrogate pairs, any other value (True), to treat Unicode text as UCS-4, with no surrogate pairs. See Font.ucs4.

name -> string

Proper font name.

Read only. Returns the real (long) name of the font, as recorded in the font file.

path -> unicode

Font file path

Read only. Returns the path of the loaded font file

size -> float
size -> (float, float)

The default point size used in rendering

Get or set the default size for text metrics and rendering. It can be a single point size, given as an Python int or float, or a font ppem (width, height) tuple. Size values are non-negative. A zero size or width represents an undefined size. In this case the size must be given as a method argument, or an exception is raised. A zero width but non-zero height is a ValueError.

For a scalable font, a single number value is equivalent to a tuple with width equal height. A font can be stretched vertically with height set greater than width, or horizontally with width set greater than height. For embedded bitmaps, as listed by get_sizes(), use the nominal width and height to select an available size.

Font size differs for a non-scalable, bitmap, font. During a method call it must match one of the available sizes returned by method get_sizes(). If not, an exception is raised. If the size is a single number, the size is first matched against the point size value. If no match, then the available size with the same nominal width and height is chosen.

get_rect(text, style=STYLE_DEFAULT, rotation=0, size=0) -> rect

Return the size and offset of rendered text

Gets the final dimensions and origin, in pixels, of text using the optional size in points, style, and rotation. For other relevant render properties, and for any optional argument not given, the default values set for the Font instance are used.

Returns a Rect instance containing the width and height of the text's bounding box and the position of the text's origin. The origin is useful in aligning separately rendered pieces of text. It gives the baseline position and bearing at the start of the text. See the render_to() method for an example.

If text is a char (byte) string, its encoding is assumed to be LATIN1.

Optionally, text can be None, which will return the bounding rectangle for the text passed to a previous get_rect(), render(), render_to(), render_raw(), or render_raw_to() call. See render_to() for more details.

get_metrics(text, size=0) -> [(...), ...]

Return the glyph metrics for the given text

Returns the glyph metrics for each character in text.

The glyph metrics are returned as a list of tuples. Each tuple gives metrics of a single character glyph. The glyph metrics are:

(min_x, max_x, min_y, max_y, horizontal_advance_x, horizontal_advance_y)

The bounding box min_x, max_y, min_y, and max_y values are returned as grid-fitted pixel coordinates of type int. The advance values are float values.

The calculations are done using the font's default size in points. Optionally you may specify another point size with the size argument.

The metrics are adjusted for the current rotation, strong, and oblique settings.

If text is a char (byte) string, then its encoding is assumed to be LATIN1.

height -> int

The unscaled height of the font in font units

Read only. Gets the height of the font. This is the average value of all glyphs in the font.

ascender -> int

The unscaled ascent of the font in font units

Read only. Return the number of units from the font's baseline to the top of the bounding box.

descender -> int

The unscaled descent of the font in font units

Read only. Return the height in font units for the font descent. The descent is the number of units from the font's baseline to the bottom of the bounding box.

get_sized_ascender(<size>=0) -> int

The scaled ascent of the font in pixels

Return the number of units from the font's baseline to the top of the bounding box. It is not adjusted for strong or rotation.

get_sized_descender(<size>=0) -> int

The scaled descent of the font in pixels

Return the number of pixels from the font's baseline to the top of the bounding box. It is not adjusted for strong or rotation.

get_sized_height(<size>=0) -> int

The scaled height of the font in pixels

Returns the height of the font. This is the average value of all glyphs in the font. It is not adjusted for strong or rotation.

get_sized_glyph_height(<size>=0) -> int

The scaled bounding box height of the font in pixels

Return the glyph bounding box height of the font in pixels. This is the average value of all glyphs in the font. It is not adjusted for strong or rotation.

get_sizes() -> [(int, int, int, float, float), ...]
get_sizes() -> []

return the available sizes of embedded bitmaps

Returns a list of tuple records, one for each point size supported. Each tuple containing the point size, the height in pixels, width in pixels, horizontal ppem (nominal width) in fractional pixels, and vertical ppem (nominal height) in fractional pixels.

render(text, fgcolor=None, bgcolor=None, style=STYLE_DEFAULT, rotation=0, size=0) -> (Surface, Rect)

Return rendered text as a surface

Returns a new Surface, with the text rendered to it in the color given by 'fgcolor'. If no foreground color is given, the default foreground color, fgcolor is used. If bgcolor is given, the surface will be filled with this color. When no background color is given, the surface background is transparent, zero alpha. Normally the returned surface has a 32 bit pixel size. However, if bgcolor is None and anti-aliasing is disabled a monochrome 8 bit colorkey surface, with colorkey set for the background color, is returned.

The return value is a tuple: the new surface and the bounding rectangle giving the size and origin of the rendered text.

If an empty string is passed for text then the returned Rect is zero width and the height of the font.

Optional fgcolor, style, rotation, and size arguments override the default values set for the Font instance.

If text is a char (byte) string, then its encoding is assumed to be LATIN1.

Optionally, text can be None, which will render the text passed to a previous get_rect(), render(), render_to(), render_raw(), or render_raw_to() call. See render_to() for details.

render_to(surf, dest, text, fgcolor=None, bgcolor=None, style=STYLE_DEFAULT, rotation=0, size=0) -> Rect

Render text onto an existing surface

Renders the string text to the pygame.Surface surf, at position dest, a (x, y) surface coordinate pair. If either x or y is not an integer it is converted to one if possible. Any sequence where the first two items are x and y positional elements is accepted, including a Rect instance. As with render(), optional fgcolor, style, rotation, and size argument are available.

If a background color bgcolor is given, the text bounding box is first filled with that color. The text is blitted next. Both the background fill and text rendering involve full alpha blits. That is, the alpha values of the foreground, background, and destination target surface all affect the blit.

The return value is a rectangle giving the size and position of the rendered text within the surface.

If an empty string is passed for text then the returned Rect is zero width and the height of the font. The rect will test False.

Optionally, text can be set None, which will re-render text passed to a previous render_to(), get_rect(), render(), render_raw(), or render_raw_to() call. Primarily, this feature is an aid to using render_to() in combination with get_rect(). An example:

def word_wrap(surf, text, font, color=(0, 0, 0)):
    font.origin = True
    words = text.split(' ')
    width, height = surf.get_size()
    line_spacing = font.get_sized_height() + 2
    x, y = 0, line_spacing
    space = font.get_rect(' ')
    for word in words:
        bounds = font.get_rect(word)
        if x + bounds.width + bounds.x >= width:
            x, y = 0, y + line_spacing
        if x + bounds.width + bounds.x >= width:
            raise ValueError("word too wide for the surface")
        if y + bounds.height - bounds.y >= height:
            raise ValueError("text to long for the surface")
        font.render_to(surf, (x, y), None, color)
        x += bounds.width + space.width
    return x, y

When render_to() is called with the same font properties ― size, style, strength, wide, antialiased, vertical, rotation, kerning, and use_bitmap_strikes ― as get_rect(), render_to() will use the layout calculated by get_rect(). Otherwise, render_to() will recalculate the layout if called with a text string or one of the above properties has changed after the get_rect() call.

If text is a char (byte) string, then its encoding is assumed to be LATIN1.

render_raw(text, style=STYLE_DEFAULT, rotation=0, size=0, invert=False) -> (bytes, (int, int))

Return rendered text as a string of bytes

Like render() but with the pixels returned as a byte string of 8-bit gray-scale values. The foreground color is 255, the background 0, useful as an alpha mask for a foreground pattern.

render_raw_to(array, text, dest=None, style=STYLE_DEFAULT, rotation=0, size=0, invert=False) -> (int, int)

Render text into an array of ints

Render to an array object exposing an array struct interface. The array must be two dimensional with integer items. The default dest value, None, is equivalent to position (0, 0). See render_to(). As with the other render methods, text can be None to render a text string passed previously to another method.

style -> int

The font's style flags

Gets or sets the default style of the Font. This default style will be used for all text rendering and size calculations unless overridden specifically a render or get_rect() call. The style value may be a bit-wise OR of one or more of the following constants:

STYLE_NORMAL
STYLE_UNDERLINE
STYLE_OBLIQUE
STYLE_STRONG
STYLE_WIDE
STYLE_DEFAULT

These constants may be found on the FreeType constants module. Optionally, the default style can be modified or obtained accessing the individual style attributes (underline, oblique, strong).

The STYLE_OBLIQUE and STYLE_STRONG styles are for scalable fonts only. An attempt to set either for a bitmap font raises an AttributeError. An attempt to set either for an inactive font, as returned by Font.__new__(), raises a RuntimeError.

Assigning STYLE_DEFAULT to the style property leaves the property unchanged, as this property defines the default. The style property will never return STYLE_DEFAULT.

underline -> bool

The state of the font's underline style flag

Gets or sets whether the font will be underlined when drawing text. This default style value will be used for all text rendering and size calculations unless overridden specifically in a render or get_rect() call, via the 'style' parameter.

strong -> bool

The state of the font's strong style flag

Gets or sets whether the font will be bold when drawing text. This default style value will be used for all text rendering and size calculations unless overridden specifically in a render or get_rect() call, via the 'style' parameter.

oblique -> bool

The state of the font's oblique style flag

Gets or sets whether the font will be rendered as oblique. This default style value will be used for all text rendering and size calculations unless overridden specifically in a render or get_rect() call, via the style parameter.

The oblique style is only supported for scalable (outline) fonts. An attempt to set this style on a bitmap font will raise an AttributeError. If the font object is inactive, as returned by Font.__new__(), setting this property raises a RuntimeError.

wide -> bool

The state of the font's wide style flag

Gets or sets whether the font will be stretched horizontally when drawing text. It produces a result similar to pygame.font.Font's bold. This style not available for rotated text.

strength -> float

The strength associated with the strong or wide font styles

The amount by which a font glyph's size is enlarged for the strong or wide transformations, as a fraction of the untransformed size. For the wide style only the horizontal dimension is increased. For strong text both the horizontal and vertical dimensions are enlarged. A wide style of strength 0.08333 ( 1/12 ) is equivalent to the pygame.font.Font bold style. The default is 0.02778 ( 1/36 ).

The strength style is only supported for scalable (outline) fonts. An attempt to set this property on a bitmap font will raise an AttributeError. If the font object is inactive, as returned by Font.__new__(), assignment to this property raises a RuntimeError.

underline_adjustment -> float

Adjustment factor for the underline position

Gets or sets a factor which, when positive, is multiplied with the font's underline offset to adjust the underline position. A negative value turns an underline into a strike-through or overline. It is multiplied with the ascender. Accepted values range between -2.0 and 2.0 inclusive. A value of 0.5 closely matches Tango underlining. A value of 1.0 mimics pygame.font.Font underlining.

fixed_width -> bool

Gets whether the font is fixed-width

Read only. Returns True if the font contains fixed-width characters (for example Courier, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Andale Mono).

fixed_sizes -> int

the number of available bitmap sizes for the font

Read only. Returns the number of point sizes for which the font contains bitmap character images. If zero then the font is not a bitmap font. A scalable font may contain pre-rendered point sizes as strikes.

scalable -> bool

Gets whether the font is scalable

Read only. Returns True if the font contains outline glyphs. If so, the point size is not limited to available bitmap sizes.

use_bitmap_strikes -> bool

allow the use of embedded bitmaps in an outline font file

Some scalable fonts include embedded bitmaps for particular point sizes. This property controls whether or not those bitmap strikes are used. Set it False to disable the loading of any bitmap strike. Set it True, the default, to permit bitmap strikes for a non-rotated render with no style other than wide or underline. This property is ignored for bitmap fonts.

See also fixed_sizes and get_sizes().

antialiased -> bool

Font anti-aliasing mode

Gets or sets the font's anti-aliasing mode. This defaults to True on all fonts, which are rendered with full 8 bit blending.

Set to False to do monochrome rendering. This should provide a small speed gain and reduce cache memory size.

kerning -> bool

Character kerning mode

Gets or sets the font's kerning mode. This defaults to False on all fonts, which will be rendered without kerning.

Set to True to add kerning between character pairs, if supported by the font, when positioning glyphs.

vertical -> bool

Font vertical mode

Gets or sets whether the characters are laid out vertically rather than horizontally. May be useful when rendering Kanji or some other vertical script.

Set to True to switch to a vertical text layout. The default is False, place horizontally.

Note that the Font class does not automatically determine script orientation. Vertical layout must be selected explicitly.

Also note that several font formats (especially bitmap based ones) don't contain the necessary metrics to draw glyphs vertically, so drawing in those cases will give unspecified results.

rotation -> int

text rotation in degrees counterclockwise

Gets or sets the baseline angle of the rendered text. The angle is represented as integer degrees. The default angle is 0, with horizontal text rendered along the X-axis, and vertical text along the Y-axis. A positive value rotates these axes counterclockwise that many degrees. A negative angle corresponds to a clockwise rotation. The rotation value is normalized to a value within the range 0 to 359 inclusive (eg. 390 -> 390 - 360 -> 30, -45 -> 360 + -45 -> 315, 720 -> 720 - (2 * 360) -> 0).

Only scalable (outline) fonts can be rotated. An attempt to change the rotation of a bitmap font raises an AttributeError. An attempt to change the rotation of an inactive font instance, as returned by Font.__new__(), raises a RuntimeError.

fgcolor -> Color

default foreground color

Gets or sets the default glyph rendering color. It is initially opaque black ― (0, 0, 0, 255). Applies to render() and render_to().

origin -> bool

Font render to text origin mode

If set True, render_to() and render_raw_to() will take the dest position to be that of the text origin, as opposed to the top-left corner of the bounding box. See get_rect() for details.

pad -> bool

padded boundary mode

If set True, then the text boundary rectangle will be inflated to match that of font.Font. Otherwise, the boundary rectangle is just large enough for the text.

ucs4 -> bool

Enable UCS-4 mode

Gets or sets the decoding of Unicode text. By default, the freetype module performs UTF-16 surrogate pair decoding on Unicode text. This allows 32-bit escape sequences ('Uxxxxxxxx') between 0x10000 and 0x10FFFF to represent their corresponding UTF-32 code points on Python interpreters built with a UCS-2 Unicode type (on Windows, for instance). It also means character values within the UTF-16 surrogate area (0xD800 to 0xDFFF) are considered part of a surrogate pair. A malformed surrogate pair will raise a UnicodeEncodeError. Setting ucs4 True turns surrogate pair decoding off, allowing access the full UCS-4 character range to a Python interpreter built with four-byte Unicode character support.

resolution -> int

Pixel resolution in dots per inch

Read only. Gets pixel size used in scaling font glyphs for this Font instance.