pygame.font — pygame-ce v2.5.3 documentation

pygame.font

pygame module for loading and rendering fonts

pygame.font.init	—	initialize the font module
pygame.font.quit	—	uninitialize the font module
pygame.font.get_init	—	true if the font module is initialized
pygame.font.get_default_font	—	get the filename of the default font
pygame.font.get_sdl_ttf_version	—	gets SDL_ttf version
pygame.font.get_fonts	—	get all available fonts
pygame.font.match_font	—	find a specific font on the system
pygame.font.SysFont	—	create a Font object from the system fonts
pygame.font.Font	—	create a new Font object from a file

The font module allows for rendering TrueType fonts into Surface objects. This module is built on top of the SDL_ttf library, which comes with all normal pygame installations.

Most of the work done with fonts are done by using the actual Font objects. The module by itself only has routines to support the creation of Font objects with pygame.font.Font()create a new Font object from a file.

You can load fonts from the system by using the pygame.font.SysFont()create a Font object from the system fonts function. There are a few other functions to help look up the system fonts.

Pygame comes with a builtin default font, freesansbold. This can always be accessed by passing None as the font name.

Before pygame 2.0.3, pygame.font accepts any UCS-2 / UTF-16 character ('\u0001' to '\uFFFF'). After 2.0.3, pygame.font built with SDL_ttf 2.0.15 accepts any valid UCS-4 / UTF-32 character (like emojis, if the font has them) ('\U00000001' to '\U0010FFFF')). More about this in Font.render().

Before pygame 2.0.3, this character space restriction can be avoided by using the pygame.freetypeEnhanced pygame module for loading and rendering computer fonts based pygame.ftfont to emulate the Font module. This can be used by defining the environment variable PYGAME_FREETYPE before the first import of pygamethe top level pygame package. Since the problem pygame.ftfont solves no longer exists, it will likely be removed in the future.

pygame.font.init()¶

initialize the font module

init() -> None

This method is called automatically by pygame.init(). It initializes the font module. The module must be initialized before any other functions will work.

It is safe to call this function more than once.

pygame.font.quit()¶

uninitialize the font module

quit() -> None

Manually uninitialize SDL_ttf's font system. This is called automatically by pygame.quit().

It is safe to call this function even if font is currently not initialized.

Previously created font objects will be invalid after the font module is quit.

pygame.font.get_init()¶: true if the font module is initialized

get_init() -> bool

Test if the font module is initialized or not.

pygame.font.get_default_font()¶: get the filename of the default font

get_default_font() -> string

Return the filename of the system font. This is not the full path to the file. This file can usually be found in the same directory as the font module, but it can also be bundled in separate archives.

pygame.font.get_sdl_ttf_version()¶: gets SDL_ttf version

get_sdl_ttf_version(linked=True) -> (major, minor, patch)

Returns a tuple of integers that identify SDL_ttf's version. SDL_ttf is the underlying font rendering library, written in C, on which pygame's font module depends. If 'linked' is True (the default), the function returns the version of the linked TTF library. Otherwise this function returns the version of TTF pygame was compiled with

New in pygame-ce 2.1.3.

pygame.font.get_fonts()¶: get all available fonts

get_fonts() -> list of strings

Returns a list of all the fonts available on the system. The names of the fonts will be set to lowercase with all spaces and punctuation removed. This works on most systems, but some will return an empty list if they cannot find fonts.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.3: Checks through user fonts instead of just global fonts for Windows.

pygame.font.match_font()¶

find a specific font on the system

match_font(name, bold=False, italic=False) -> path

Returns the full path to a font file on the system. If bold or italic are set to true, this will attempt to find the correct family of font.

The font name can also be an iterable of font names, a string of comma-separated font names, or a bytes of comma-separated font names, in which case the set of names will be searched in order. If none of the given names are found, None is returned.

New in pygame 2.0.1: Accept an iterable of font names.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.3: Checks through user fonts instead of just global fonts for Windows.

Example:

print pygame.font.match_font('bitstreamverasans')
# output is: /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera/Vera.ttf
# (but only if you have Vera on your system)

pygame.font.SysFont()¶

create a Font object from the system fonts

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

Return a new Font object that is loaded from the system fonts. The font will match the requested bold and italic flags. Pygame uses a small set of common font aliases. If the specific font you ask for is not available, a reasonable alternative may be used. If a suitable system font is not found this will fall back on loading the default pygame font.

The font name can also be an iterable of font names, a string of comma-separated font names, or a bytes of comma-separated font names, in which case the set of names will be searched in order.

New in pygame 2.0.1: Accept an iterable of font names.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.3: Checks through user fonts instead of just global fonts for Windows.

pygame.font.Font¶

create a new Font object from a file
Font(filename=None, size=20) -> Font
Font(filename, size) -> Font
Font(pathlib.Path, size) -> Font
Font(object, size) -> Font

pygame.font.Font.bold	—	Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered in (faked) bold.
pygame.font.Font.name	—	Gets the font's name.
pygame.font.Font.style_name	—	Gets the font's style_name.
pygame.font.Font.italic	—	Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered in (faked) italics.
pygame.font.Font.underline	—	Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered with an underline.
pygame.font.Font.strikethrough	—	Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered with a strikethrough.
pygame.font.Font.align	—	Set how rendered text is aligned when given a wrap length.
pygame.font.Font.point_size	—	Gets or sets the font's point size
pygame.font.Font.render	—	draw text on a new Surface
pygame.font.Font.size	—	determine the amount of space needed to render text
pygame.font.Font.set_underline	—	control if text is rendered with an underline
pygame.font.Font.get_underline	—	check if text will be rendered with an underline
pygame.font.Font.set_strikethrough	—	control if text is rendered with a strikethrough
pygame.font.Font.get_strikethrough	—	check if text will be rendered with a strikethrough
pygame.font.Font.set_bold	—	enable fake rendering of bold text
pygame.font.Font.get_bold	—	check if text will be rendered bold
pygame.font.Font.set_italic	—	enable fake rendering of italic text
pygame.font.Font.metrics	—	gets the metrics for each character in the passed string
pygame.font.Font.get_italic	—	check if the text will be rendered italic
pygame.font.Font.get_linesize	—	get the line space of the font text
pygame.font.Font.get_height	—	get the height of the font
pygame.font.Font.set_point_size	—	set the point size of the font
pygame.font.Font.get_point_size	—	get the point size of the font
pygame.font.Font.get_ascent	—	get the ascent of the font
pygame.font.Font.get_descent	—	get the descent of the font
pygame.font.Font.set_script	—	set the script code for text shaping
pygame.font.Font.set_direction	—	set the script direction for text shaping

Load a new font from a given filename or a python file object. The size is the height of the font in pixels. If the filename is None the pygame default font will be loaded. If a font cannot be loaded from the arguments given an exception will be raised. Once the font is created the size cannot be changed.

Font objects are mainly used to render text into new Surface objects. The render can emulate bold or italic features, but it is better to load from a font with actual italic or bold glyphs.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.4: If no arguments are given then the default font will be used and a font size of 20 is used.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.4: This class is also available through the pygame.Font alias.

bold¶

Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered in (faked) bold.

bold -> bool

Whether the font should be rendered in bold.

When set to True, this enables the bold rendering of text. This is a fake stretching of the font that doesn't look good on many font types. If possible load the font from a real bold font file. While bold, the font will have a different width than when normal. This can be mixed with the italic, underline and strikethrough modes.

New in pygame 2.0.0.

name¶: Gets the font's name.

name -> str

Read only. Returns the font's name.

New in pygame-ce 2.2.

style_name¶: Gets the font's style_name.

style_name -> str

Read only. Returns the font's style name. Style names are arbitrary, can be an empty string. Here are some examples:

'Black', 'Bold', 'Bold Italic', 'BoldOblique', 'Book', 'BookOblique', 'Condensed', 'Condensed Oblique', 'ExtraLight', 'Italic', 'Light', 'LightOblique', 'Medium', 'MediumOblique', 'Oblique', 'Regular', 'Semibold', 'Semilight', 'Slanted'

New in pygame-ce 2.3.1.

italic¶

Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered in (faked) italics.

italic -> bool

Whether the font should be rendered in italic.

When set to True, this enables fake rendering of italic text. This is a fake skewing of the font that doesn't look good on many font types. If possible load the font from a real italic font file. While italic the font will have a different width than when normal. This can be mixed with the bold, underline and strikethrough modes.

New in pygame 2.0.0.

underline¶

Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered with an underline.

underline -> bool

Whether the font should be rendered in underline.

When set to True, all rendered fonts will include an underline. The underline is always one pixel thick, regardless of font size. This can be mixed with the bold, italic and strikethrough modes.

New in pygame 2.0.0.

strikethrough¶

Gets or sets whether the font should be rendered with a strikethrough.

strikethrough -> bool

Whether the font should be rendered with a strikethrough.

When set to True, all rendered fonts will include an strikethrough. The strikethrough is always one pixel thick, regardless of font size. This can be mixed with the bold, italic and underline modes.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.3.

align¶

Set how rendered text is aligned when given a wrap length.

align -> int

Can be set to pygame.FONT_LEFT, pygame.FONT_RIGHT, or pygame.FONT_CENTER. This controls the text alignment behavior for the font.

Requires pygame built with SDL_ttf 2.20.0, as all official pygame distributions are.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4.

point_size¶: Gets or sets the font's point size

point_size -> int

Returns the point size of the font. Will not be accurate upon initializing the font object when the font name is initialized as None.

New in pygame-ce 2.3.1.

render()¶

draw text on a new Surface

render(text, antialias, color, bgcolor=None, wraplength=0) -> Surface

This creates a new Surface with the specified text rendered on it. pygame.fontpygame module for loading and rendering fonts provides no way to directly draw text on an existing Surface: instead you must use Font.render() to create an image (Surface) of the text, then blit this image onto another Surface.

Null characters ('x00') raise a TypeError. Both Unicode and char (byte) strings are accepted. For Unicode strings only UCS-2 characters ('\u0001' to '\uFFFF') were previously supported and any greater unicode codepoint would raise a UnicodeError. Now, characters in the UCS-4 range are supported. For char strings a LATIN1 encoding is assumed. The antialias argument is a boolean: if True the characters will have smooth edges. The color argument is the color of the text [e.g.: (0,0,255) for blue]. The optional bgcolor argument is a color to use for the text background. If bgcolor is None the area outside the text will be transparent.

The wraplength argument describes the width (in pixels) a line of text should be before wrapping to a new line. See pygame.font.Font.alignSet how rendered text is aligned when given a wrap length. for line-alignment settings.

The Surface returned will be of the dimensions required to hold the text. (the same as those returned by Font.size()). If an empty string is passed for the text, a blank surface will be returned that is zero pixel wide and the height of the font.

Depending on the type of background and antialiasing used, this returns different types of Surfaces. For performance reasons, it is good to know what type of image will be used. If antialiasing is not used, the return image will always be an 8-bit image with a two-color palette. If the background is transparent a colorkey will be set. Antialiased images are rendered to 24-bit RGB images. If the background is transparent a pixel alpha will be included.

Optimization: if you know that the final destination for the text (on the screen) will always have a solid background, and the text is antialiased, you can improve performance by specifying the background color. This will cause the resulting image to maintain transparency information by colorkey rather than (much less efficient) alpha values.

Font rendering is not thread safe: only a single thread can render text at any time.

Changed in pygame 2.0.3: Rendering UCS4 unicode works and does not raise an exception. Use if hasattr(pygame.font, "UCS4"): to see if pygame supports rendering UCS4 unicode including more languages and emoji.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.1.4: newline characters now will break text into multiple lines.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4: wraplength parameter

Changed in pygame-ce 2.3.0: now supports keyword arguments.

size()¶

determine the amount of space needed to render text

size(text, /) -> (width, height)

Returns the dimensions needed to render the text. This can be used to help determine the positioning needed for text before it is rendered. It can also be used for word wrapping and other layout effects.

Be aware that most fonts use kerning which adjusts the widths for specific letter pairs. For example, the width for "ae" will not always match the width for "a" + "e".

set_underline()¶: control if text is rendered with an underline

set_underline(bool, /) -> None

When enabled, all rendered fonts will include an underline. The underline is always one pixel thick, regardless of font size. This can be mixed with the bold, italic and strikethrough modes.

Note

This is the same as the underline attribute.

get_underline()¶: check if text will be rendered with an underline

get_underline() -> bool

Return True when the font underline is enabled.

Note

This is the same as the underline attribute.

set_strikethrough()¶: control if text is rendered with a strikethrough

set_strikethrough(bool, /) -> None

When enabled, all rendered fonts will include a strikethrough. The strikethrough is always one pixel thick, regardless of font size. This can be mixed with the bold, italic and underline modes.

Note

This is the same as the strikethrough attribute.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.3.

get_strikethrough()¶: check if text will be rendered with a strikethrough

get_strikethrough() -> bool

Return True when the font strikethrough is enabled.

Note

This is the same as the strikethrough attribute.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.3.

set_bold()¶: enable fake rendering of bold text

set_bold(bool, /) -> None

Enables the bold rendering of text. This is a fake stretching of the font that doesn't look good on many font types. If possible load the font from a real bold font file. While bold, the font will have a different width than when normal. This can be mixed with the italic, underline and strikethrough modes.

Note

This is the same as the bold attribute.

get_bold()¶: check if text will be rendered bold

get_bold() -> bool

Return True when the font bold rendering mode is enabled.

Note

This is the same as the bold attribute.

set_italic()¶: enable fake rendering of italic text

set_italic(bool, /) -> None

Enables fake rendering of italic text. This is a fake skewing of the font that doesn't look good on many font types. If possible load the font from a real italic font file. While italic the font will have a different width than when normal. This can be mixed with the bold, underline and strikethrough modes.

Note

This is the same as the italic attribute.

metrics()¶: gets the metrics for each character in the passed string

metrics(text, /) -> list

The list contains tuples for each character, which contain the minimum X offset, the maximum X offset, the minimum Y offset, the maximum Y offset and the advance offset (bearing plus width) of the character. [(minx, maxx, miny, maxy, advance), (minx, maxx, miny, maxy, advance), ...]. None is entered in the list for each unrecognized character.

get_italic()¶: check if the text will be rendered italic

get_italic() -> bool

Return True when the font italic rendering mode is enabled.

Note

This is the same as the italic attribute.

get_linesize()¶: get the line space of the font text

get_linesize() -> int

Return the height in pixels for a line of text with the font. When rendering multiple lines of text this is the recommended amount of space between lines.

get_height()¶: get the height of the font

get_height() -> int

Return the height in pixels of the actual rendered text. This is the average size for each glyph in the font.

set_point_size()¶: set the point size of the font

set_point_size(size, /) -> int

Sets the point size of the font, which is the value that was used to initialize this font.

New in pygame-ce 2.3.1.

get_point_size()¶: get the point size of the font

get_point_size() -> int

Returns the point size of the font. Will not be accurate upon initializing the font object when the font name is initialized as None.

New in pygame-ce 2.3.1.

get_ascent()¶: get the ascent of the font

get_ascent() -> int

Return the height in pixels for the font ascent. The ascent is the number of pixels from the font baseline to the top of the font.

get_descent()¶: get the descent of the font

get_descent() -> int

Return the height in pixels for the font descent. The descent is the number of pixels from the font baseline to the bottom of the font.

set_script()¶

set the script code for text shaping

set_script(str, /) -> None

Sets the script used by harfbuzz text shaping, taking a 4 character script code as input. For example, Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, for which the script code is "Deva". See the full list of script codes in ISO 15924.

This method requires pygame built with SDL_ttf 2.20.0 or above. Otherwise the method will raise a pygame.error.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4.

set_direction()¶

set the script direction for text shaping

set_direction(direction) -> None

Sets the font direction for harfbuzz text rendering, taking in an integer between 0 and 3 (inclusive) as input. There are convenient constants defined for use in this method.

pygame.DIRECTION_LTR is for left-to-right text
pygame.DIRECTION_RTL is for right-to-left text
pygame.DIRECTION_TTB is for top-to-bottom text
pygame.DIRECTION_BTT is for bottom-to-top text

This method requires pygame built with SDL_ttf 2.20.0 or above. Otherwise the method will raise a pygame.error.

Note

multiline renders with render() do not play nicely with top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top rendering.

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4.

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