How to increase Graphics2D text quality?

Question

I have a question concerning printing additional information on barcodes. I am using http://barbecue.sourceforge.net/ to create my barcodes.

After I created my barcodes I want to add some additional information. At the moment i do this with the following way! For example:

Graphics2D g2d5 = container4Barcode.createGraphics();
g2d5.setBackground(Color.WHITE);
g2d5.clearRect(0, 33, 200, 200);
g2d5.setColor(Color.BLACK);
g2d5.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
    RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
g2d5.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
    RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_GASP);
g2d5.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, 8));
g2d5.drawString(barcode, 8, 40);
g2d5.drawString(generateRandomNumber(ekPreis), 57, 40);
String datumResult = datum;
g2d5.drawString(location, 98, 40);
g2d5.drawString(datum.substring(2), 114, 40);
g2d5.dispose();

The output is in a pdf the following:

As you can see is the quality of my text (above and under the barcode) is really bad ... How can I increase the quality of the text to make the text more smoother and not that pixelated?!

(When I print my barcodes, the barcodes look very pixelated ...)

Any tips?

UPDATE:

So, I added here the a picture of my latest outcome ... When I print out these barcodes they look horrible! So here is the code what I did:

Graphics2D g2d6 = container4Barcode.createGraphics();
g2d6.setColor(Color.black);
g2d6.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
    RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
g2d6.setFont(new Font("Verdana", Font.BOLD, 7));
g2d6.drawString("FLORETT", 9, 20);
g2d6.drawString("50-521-60", 57, 20);
Graphics2D g2d4 = container4Barcode.createGraphics();
g2d4.setColor(Color.black);
g2d4.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
    RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON); 
g2d4.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS, 
    RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
g2d4.setFont(new Font("Verdana", Font.BOLD, 11));
g2d4.drawString("SSYYS", 105, 19);
g2d4.dispose();

With that Code I get the best results! Of course I played with "Metrics, AA_GASP, LCS_HRGB, different fonts (Verdana is the best in my opinion) ..." and a lot more, but some of them I couldn't use, because then my barcode got blurred! So actioally I am forcing the problem that I am unable to improve the quality of my text-quality of the drawstring from graphics2d!

So, I want to ask if there is a possibility to let the "SSYYS" (Font Size 11) and the "FLORETT" (Font Size 7) look much nicer! Is there a possibility in JAVA to draw "smooth" text on an image with a font size less than "12" ? Is there a workaround to to that ? As you can see in the picture the letters "S and Y" look very awful...

2nd Update:

Some Example code so far... Please be sure that the following folder exists: C:\TestBarcodes\

Hope I reduced my code to the minimum that you can imagine what my problem is...

package generator;

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

import net.sourceforge.barbecue.Barcode;
import net.sourceforge.barbecue.BarcodeException;
import net.sourceforge.barbecue.BarcodeFactory;
import net.sourceforge.barbecue.output.OutputException;

import org.apache.pdfbox.exceptions.COSVisitorException;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDPage;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.edit.PDPageContentStream;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.graphics.xobject.PDJpeg;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.graphics.xobject.PDXObjectImage;

public class BarcodeGen {

  // sets the picWidth
  private static int picWidth = 149;
  // sets the picHeigth
  private static int picHeigth = 60;

  public static void main(String[] args) 
      throws BarcodeException, OutputException, COSVisitorException, IOException {
    generateBarcode("11138500");
  }

  public static void generateBarcode(String barcode) 
      throws IOException, COSVisitorException, BarcodeException, OutputException {

    Barcode barcode2 = BarcodeFactory.createCode39(barcode, false);
    int gw = barcode2.getWidth();
    // change this to suit if you want higher, default 50
    // barcode2.setBarWidth(50);
    // this sets DPI
    barcode2.setResolution(100);
    // barcode2.setFont(font);
    int gh = barcode2.getHeight();
    // change this if you want a coloured background
    // image = new BufferedImage(t, s, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB)
    BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(gw, gh, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);

    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
    // default is black so draw a white box first
    // change type to INT_RGB if you want a coloured background
    g2.setColor(Color.white);
    g2.fillRect(0, 0, gw, gh);
    barcode2.draw(g2, 0, 0);

    // CREATE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON BARCODE

    BufferedImage container4Barcode = new BufferedImage(
        picWidth, picHeigth, image.getType());
    Graphics2D g2d = container4Barcode.createGraphics();

    g2d.setBackground(Color.WHITE);
    g2d.clearRect(0, 0, picWidth, picHeigth);
    g2d.setColor(Color.black);
    g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_HRGB);
    g2d.drawImage(image, 8, 21, 130, 18, null);
    g2d.dispose();

    Graphics2D g2d6 = container4Barcode.createGraphics();
    g2d6.setColor(Color.black);
    g2d6.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    g2d6.setFont(new Font("Verdana", Font.BOLD, 7));

    g2d6.drawString("FLORETT", 9, 20);
    g2d6.drawString("50-521-60", 57, 20);

    Graphics2D g2d4 = container4Barcode.createGraphics();
    g2d4.setColor(Color.black);
    g2d4.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    g2d4.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS,
        RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
    g2d4.setFont(new Font("Verdana", Font.BOLD, 11));
    g2d4.drawString("SSYYS", 105, 19);
    g2d4.dispose();

    // PRINT PDF

    int ver = 782;

    PDDocument doc = new PDDocument();
    PDPage page = new PDPage(PDPage.PAGE_SIZE_A4);
    doc.addPage(page);

    PDXObjectImage image2 = new PDJpeg(doc, container4Barcode);
    PDPageContentStream content = new PDPageContentStream(doc, page);
    content.drawImage(image2, 5, ver);
    content.close();

    doc.save(new FileOutputStream("C:\\TestBarcodes\\barcode.pdf"));

    // opens the pdf file
    Process p = Runtime
        .getRuntime()
        .exec("rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler C:\\TestBarcodes\\barcode.pdf");
    try {
      p.waitFor();
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      // TODO Auto-generated catch block
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

Answer 1

If someone wants to use pixel images in such cases, and not vector, then image should be upscaled for better printing quality:

static final int PIXELS_PER_POINT = 4; // 4x

Then define all dimensions in points, not in pixels:

// Image size in points
static final int IMAGE_WIDTH = 150;
static final int IMAGE_HEIGHT = 60;
// Font size in points
static final int FONT_SIZE = 11;

Now, when do any drawing, always use points converted to pixels:

static int toPixels(int value) {
    return value * PIXELS_PER_POINT;
}

BufferedImage draw() {
    BufferedImage image = 
        new BufferedImage(toPixels(IMAGE_WIDTH), toPixels(IMAGE_HEIGHT), TYPE_INT_ARGB);
    Graphics2D g = image.createGraphics();
    // <graphics init code goes here>

    Font font = new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, toPixels(FONT_SIZE));
    g.setFont(font);
    g.drawString("Grapes", toPixels(5), toPixels(40)); // coordinates are in points

    g.dispose()
    return image;
}

So, with this approach you can operate with 'standard' dimentions. This approach works quite well for me for low- and medium complexity drawings.

You can go further and convert PIXELS_PER_POINT to a parameter: use 1x for images on web-pages with ordinary display, 2x for Retina displays and 4x for printing!

Answer 2

To fix the jagged edges in text or shapes in Graphics2d you need to set RenderingHint.

Graphics2D g2d = bufferedImage.createGraphics();

    g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);

Explanation

A typical antialiasing algorithm works by blending the existing colors of the pixels along the boundary of a shape with the requested fill paint according to the estimated partial pixel coverage of the shape.

Text antialiasing hint key. The TEXT_ANTIALIASING hint can control the use of antialiasing algorithms for text independently of the choice used for shape rendering. Often an application may want to use antialiasing for text only and not for other shapes. Additionally, the algorithms for reducing the aliasing artifacts for text are often more sophisticated than those that have been developed for general rendering so this hint key provides additional values which can control the choices of some of those text-specific algorithms. If left in the DEFAULT state, this hint will generally defer to the value of the regular KEY_ANTIALIASING hint key.