How to find the width of a String (in pixels) in WIN32

Question

Can you measure the width of a string more exactly in WIN32 than using the GetTextMetrics function and using tmAveCharWidth*strSize?

Answer 1

I don't know for certain, but it seems that:

HDC hDC = GetDC(NULL);
RECT r = { 0, 0, 0, 0 };
char str[] = "Whatever";
DrawText(hDC, str, strlen(str), &r, DT_CALCRECT);

might work.

Answer 2

Try using GetTextExtentPoint32. That uses the current font for the given device context to measure the width and height of the rendered string in logical units. For the default mapping mode, MM_TEXT, 1 logical unit is 1 pixel.

However, if you've changed the mapping mode for the current device context, a logical unit may not be the same as a pixel. You can read about the different mapping modes on MSDN. With the mapping mode, you can convert the dimensions returned to you by GetTextExtentPoint32 to pixels.