#242 – Drawing Text Using DrawGlyphRun

If you want an even lower-level mechanism for drawing text than provided by DrawingContext.DrawText, you can use DrawingContext.DrawGlyphRun.

DrawGlyphRun lets you draw text based on glyphs, which are individual characters within a font that typically represent a single character in a language.

Below is an example of rendering the word “Wow” using DrawGlyphRun, in a custom DrawingVisual.

    class MyDrawingVisual : DrawingVisual
    {
        public MyDrawingVisual()
        {
            using (DrawingContext dc = RenderOpen())
            {
                GlyphRun gr = new GlyphRun(
                    new GlyphTypeface(new Uri(@"C:\Windows\Fonts\BKANT.TTF")),
                    0,       // Bi-directional nesting level
                    false,   // isSideways
                    96,      // pt size
                    new ushort[] { 58, 82, 90 },   // glyphIndices
                    new Point(100.0, 100.0),           // baselineOrigin
                    new double[] { 80.0, 45.0, 0.0 },  // advanceWidths
                    null,    // glyphOffsets
                    null,    // characters
                    null,    // deviceFontName
                    null,    // clusterMap
                    null,    // caretStops
                    null);   // xmlLanguage

                // Draw the text at a location
                dc.DrawGlyphRun(Brushes.Black, gr);
            }
        }
    }

The glyphIndices parameter specifies a list of indexes into the font for the glyphs that are to be rendered.