[reportlab-users] outlined text?

[Robin Becker]

Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Jason Craig:

> 

>> Is it possible to (somewhat easily) draw outlined text either with the 

>> raw graphics functions or platypus?  I was hoping that simply setting 

>> stroke color to black and fill color to white, then drawString would 

>> do the trick but it doesn't :(

> 

> I'm not aware of such a functionality, but the easiest way to get it,

> is to use outlined fonts, e.g. in TrueType, if you just need a simple

> type of outline and not fancy stuff like double outlines with gradients

> between the lines, etc.

> 

> Regards,

> 

> Dinu

........

We have drawn outlined fonts in the past using the text rendering mode method in 
a TextObject. The following script shows that the render mode seems to persist 
outside the text object that creates it.


##########
from reportlab.pdfgen.canvas import Canvas
c = Canvas('hello.pdf')
c.setStrokeColor((1,0,0))
c.setFillColor((0,0,1))
c.setLineWidth(0.5)
t=c.beginText()
t.setTextRenderMode(2)
c._code.append(t.getCode())
c.setFont('Helvetica',36)
c.drawString(72,72,'Hello World')
c.showPage()
c.save()
##########


This technique can probably be made easier, but I can't figure out from the PDF 
spec if it is really intended to work this way so be careful.
-- 
Robin Becker