Antialiasing with Text

GDI+ provides various quality levels for drawing text. Typically, higher quality rendering takes more processing time than lower quality rendering. To set the text quality level, set the TextRenderingHint property of a Graphics object to one of the elements of the TextRenderingHint enumeration.

GDI+ provides traditional antialiasing and a new kind of antialiasing based on Microsoft® ClearType® display technology. Only available on Microsoft® Windows® XP, ClearType smoothing improves readability on color LCD monitors that have a digital interface, such as the monitors in laptops and high-quality flat desktop displays. Readability on CRT screens is also somewhat improved.

ClearType is dependent on the orientation and ordering of the LCD stripes. Currently, ClearType is implemented only for vertical stripes that are ordered RGB. This might be a concern if you are using a tablet PC, where the display can be oriented in any direction, or if you are using a screen that can be turned from landscape to portrait.

The following example draws text with two different quality settings:

Dim fontFamily As New FontFamily("Times New Roman")
Dim font As New Font( _
   fontFamily, _
   32, _
   FontStyle.Regular, _
   GraphicsUnit.Pixel)
Dim solidBrush As New SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(255, 0, 0, 255))
Dim string1 As String = "SingleBitPerPixel"
Dim string2 As String = "AntiAlias"

e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.SingleBitPerPixel
e.Graphics.DrawString(string1, font, solidBrush, New PointF(10, 10))

e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias
e.Graphics.DrawString(string2, font, solidBrush, New PointF(10, 60))
[C#]
FontFamily  fontFamily = new FontFamily("Times New Roman");
Font font = new Font( 
   fontFamily,
   32, 
   FontStyle.Regular,
   GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
SolidBrush  solidBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.FromArgb(255, 0, 0, 255));
string string1 = "SingleBitPerPixel";
string string2 = "AntiAlias";

e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.SingleBitPerPixel;
e.Graphics.DrawString(string1, font, solidBrush, new PointF(10, 10));

e.Graphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias;
e.Graphics.DrawString(string2, font, solidBrush, new PointF(10, 60));

The following illustration shows the output of the preceding code.