wx.Font¶

A font is an object which determines the appearance of text.

Fonts are used for drawing text to a device context, and setting the appearance of a window’s text, see wx.DC.SetFont and wx.Window.SetFont .

The easiest way to create a custom font is to use wx.FontInfo object to specify the font attributes and then use Font.__init__ constructor. Alternatively, you could start with one of the pre-defined fonts or use wx.Window.GetFont and modify the font, e.g. by increasing its size using MakeLarger or changing its weight using MakeBold.

This class uses reference counting and copy-on-write internally so that assignments between two instances of this class are very cheap. You can therefore use actual objects instead of pointers without efficiency problems. If an instance of this class is changed it will create its own data internally so that other instances, which previously shared the data using the reference counting, are not affected.

You can retrieve the current system font settings with wx.SystemSettings.

Class Hierarchy¶

Inheritance diagram for class Font:

Methods Summary¶

`__init__`	Default constructor.
`AddPrivateFont`	Specify the name of a file containing a TrueType font to be made available to the current application.
`Bold`	Returns a bold version of this font.
`CanUsePrivateFont`	Returns `True` if this build of wxPython supports using `AddPrivateFont`.
`GetBaseFont`	Returns a font with the same face/size as the given one but with normal weight and style and not underlined nor stricken through.
`GetDefaultEncoding`	Returns the current application’s default encoding.
`GetEncoding`	Returns the encoding of this font.
`GetFaceName`	Returns the face name associated with the font, or the empty string if there is no face information.
`GetFamily`	Gets the font family if possible.
`GetFractionalPointSize`	Gets the point size as a floating number.
`GetHFONT`	Returns the font’s native handle.
`GetNativeFontInfo`	Returns a font with the same face/size as the given one but with normal weight and style and not underlined nor stricken through.
`GetNativeFontInfoDesc`	Returns the platform-dependent string completely describing this font.
`GetNativeFontInfoUserDesc`	Returns a user-friendly string for this font object.
`GetNumericWeight`	Gets the font weight as an integer value.
`GetNumericWeightOf`	Get the raw weight value corresponding to the given symbolic constant.
`GetPangoFontDescription`	Returns the font’s native handle.
`GetPixelSize`	Gets the pixel size.
`GetPointSize`	Gets the point size as an integer number.
`GetStrikethrough`	Returns `True` if the font is stricken-through, `False` otherwise.
`GetStyle`	Gets the font style.
`GetUnderlined`	Returns `True` if the font is underlined, `False` otherwise.
`GetWeight`	Gets the font weight.
`IsFixedWidth`	Returns `True` if the font is a fixed width (or monospaced) font, `False` if it is a proportional one or font is invalid.
`IsOk`	Returns `True` if this object is a valid font, `False` otherwise.
`Italic`	Returns an italic version of this font.
`Larger`	Returns a larger version of this font.
`MakeBold`	Changes this font to be bold.
`MakeItalic`	Changes this font to be italic.
`MakeLarger`	Changes this font to be larger.
`MakeSmaller`	Changes this font to be smaller.
`MakeStrikethrough`	Changes this font to be stricken-through.
`MakeUnderlined`	Changes this font to be underlined.
`New`	This function takes the same parameters as the relative Font constructor and returns a new font object allocated on the heap.
`OSXGetCGFont`	Returns the font’s native handle.
`Scale`	Changes the size of this font.
`Scaled`	Returns a scaled version of this font.
`SetDefaultEncoding`	Sets the default font encoding.
`SetEncoding`	Sets the encoding for this font.
`SetFaceName`	Sets the facename for the font.
`SetFamily`	Sets the font family.
`SetFractionalPointSize`	Sets the font size in points.
`SetNativeFontInfo`	Creates the font corresponding to the given native font description string which must have been previously returned by `GetNativeFontInfoDesc` .
`SetNativeFontInfoUserDesc`	Creates the font corresponding to the given native font description string and returns `True` if the creation was successful.
`SetNumericWeight`	Sets the font weight using an integer value.
`SetPixelSize`	Sets the pixel size.
`SetPointSize`	Sets the font size in points to an integer value.
`SetStrikethrough`	Sets strike-through attribute of the font.
`SetStyle`	Sets the font style.
`SetSymbolicSize`	Sets the font size using a predefined symbolic size name.
`SetSymbolicSizeRelativeTo`	Sets the font size compared to the base font size.
`SetUnderlined`	Sets underlining.
`SetWeight`	Sets the font weight.
`Smaller`	Returns a smaller version of this font.
`Strikethrough`	Returns stricken-through version of this font.
`Underlined`	Returns underlined version of this font.
`__bool__`
`__nonzero__`
`_copyFrom`	For internal use only.
`__ne__`	Inequality operator.
`__eq__`	Equality operator.

Properties Summary¶

`Encoding`	See `GetEncoding` and `SetEncoding`
`FaceName`	See `GetFaceName` and `SetFaceName`
`Family`	See `GetFamily` and `SetFamily`
`NativeFontInfoDesc`	See `GetNativeFontInfoDesc` and `SetNativeFontInfo`
`NativeFontInfoUserDesc`	See `GetNativeFontInfoUserDesc` and `SetNativeFontInfoUserDesc`
`PixelSize`	See `GetPixelSize` and `SetPixelSize`
`PointSize`	See `GetPointSize` and `SetPointSize`
`Style`	See `GetStyle` and `SetStyle`
`Weight`	See `GetWeight` and `SetWeight`

Class API¶

class wx.Font(GDIObject)¶

Possible constructors:

Font()

Font(font)

Font(fontInfo)

Font(pointSize, family, style, weight, underline=False,
     faceName="", encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Font(pixelSize, family, style, weight, underline=False,
     faceName="", encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Font(nativeInfoString)

Font(nativeInfo)

A font is an object which determines the appearance of text.

Methods¶

__init__(self, *args, **kw)¶

Overloaded Implementations:

__init__ (self)

Default constructor.

__init__ (self, font)

Copy constructor, uses reference counting.

Parameters: font (wx.Font) –

__init__ (self, fontInfo)

Creates a font object using the specified font description.

This is the preferred way to create font objects as using this constructor results in more readable code and it is also extensible, e.g. it could continue to be used if support for more font attributes is added in the future. For example, this constructor provides the only way of creating fonts with strike-through style.

Example of creating a font using this constructor:

# Create a font using wx.FontInfo
font = wx.Font( wx.FontInfo(10).Bold().Underline() )

Parameters: fontInfo (wx.FontInfo) –

New in version 2.9.5.

__init__ (self, pointSize, family, style, weight, underline=False, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Creates a font object with the specified attributes and size in points.

Notice that the use of this constructor is often more verbose and less readable than using the constructor accepting a wx.FontInfo, e.g. the example in that constructor documentation would need to be written as:

# Create a font using the old-style constructor
font = wx.Font(10, wx.FONTFAMILY_DEFAULT, wx.FONTSTYLE_NORMAL, wx.FONTWEIGHT_BOLD, True)

Parameters

pointSize (int) – Size in points. See SetPointSize for more info. Notice that, for historical reasons, the value 70 here is interpreted at DEFAULT and results in creation of the font with the default size and not of a font with the size of 70pt. If you really need the latter, please use SetPointSize(70). Note that this constructor and the matching Create() method overload are the only places in wx.Font API handling DEFAULT specially: neither SetPointSize nor the constructor taking wx.FontInfo handle this value in this way.
family (FontFamily) – The font family: a generic portable way of referring to fonts without specifying a facename. This parameter must be one of the wx.FontFamily enumeration values. If the faceName argument is provided, then it overrides the font family.
style (FontStyle) – One of FONTSTYLE_NORMAL , FONTSTYLE_SLANT and FONTSTYLE_ITALIC .
weight (FontWeight) – Font weight, sometimes also referred to as font boldness. One of the wx.FontWeight enumeration values.
underline (bool) – The value can be True or False. At present this has an effect on Windows and Motif 2.x only.
faceName (string) – An optional string specifying the face name to be used. If it is an empty string, a default face name will be chosen based on the family.
encoding (FontEncoding) – An encoding which may be one of the enumeration values of wx.FontEncoding. If the specified encoding isn’t available, no font is created (see also Font Encodings).

Note

If the desired font does not exist, the closest match will be chosen. Under Windows, only scalable TrueType fonts are used.

__init__ (self, pixelSize, family, style, weight, underline=False, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Creates a font object with the specified attributes and size in pixels.

Notice that the use of this constructor is often more verbose and less readable than the use of constructor from wx.FontInfo, consider using that constructor instead.

Parameters

pixelSize (wx.Size) – Size in pixels. See SetPixelSize for more info.
family (FontFamily) – The font family: a generic portable way of referring to fonts without specifying a facename. This parameter must be one of the wx.FontFamily enumeration values. If the faceName argument is provided, then it overrides the font family.
style (FontStyle) – One of FONTSTYLE_NORMAL , FONTSTYLE_SLANT and FONTSTYLE_ITALIC .
weight (FontWeight) – Font weight, sometimes also referred to as font boldness. One of the wx.FontWeight enumeration values.
underline (bool) – The value can be True or False. At present this has an effect on Windows and Motif 2.x only.
faceName (string) – An optional string specifying the face name to be used. If it is an empty string, a default face name will be chosen based on the family.
encoding (FontEncoding) – An encoding which may be one of the enumeration values of wx.FontEncoding. If the specified encoding isn’t available, no font is created (see also Font Encodings).

Note

If the desired font does not exist, the closest match will be chosen. Under Windows, only scalable TrueType fonts are used.

__init__ (self, nativeInfoString)

Constructor from font description string.

This constructor uses SetNativeFontInfo to initialize the font. If fontdesc is invalid the font remains uninitialized, i.e. its IsOk method will return False.

Parameters: nativeInfoString (string) –

__init__ (self, nativeInfo)

Construct font from a native font info structure.

Parameters: nativeInfo (wx.NativeFontInfo) –

static AddPrivateFont(filename)¶

Specify the name of a file containing a TrueType font to be made available to the current application.

This method can be used to allow this application to use the font from the given file even if it is not globally installed on the system.

Under macOS this method actually doesn’t do anything other than check for the existence of the file in the “Fonts” subdirectory of the application bundle “Resources” directory. You are responsible for actually making the font file available in this directory and setting ATSApplicationFontsPath to Fonts value in your Info.plist file. See also wx.StandardPaths.GetResourcesDir .

Under MSW this method must be called before any wx.GraphicsContext objects have been created, otherwise the private font won’t be usable from them.

Under Unix this method requires Pango 1.38 or later and will return False and log an error message explaining the problem if this requirement is not satisfied either at compile- or run-time.

Currently this method is implemented for all major platforms (subject to having Pango 1.38 or later when running configure under Unix) and USE_PRIVATE_FONTS is always set to 0 under the other platforms, making this function unavailable at compile-time.

Parameters: filename (string) –
Return type: bool
Returns: True if the font was added and can now be used.

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.1.

Bold(self)¶

Returns a bold version of this font.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

MakeBold

static CanUsePrivateFont()¶

Returns True if this build of wxPython supports using AddPrivateFont.

Return type: bool

GetBaseFont(self)¶

Returns a font with the same face/size as the given one but with normal weight and style and not underlined nor stricken through.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.0.

static GetDefaultEncoding()¶

Returns the current application’s default encoding.

Return type: wx.FontEncoding

See also

Font Encodings, SetDefaultEncoding

GetEncoding(self)¶

Returns the encoding of this font.

Note that under wxGTK the returned value is always FONTENCODING_UTF8 .

Return type: wx.FontEncoding

See also

SetEncoding

GetFaceName(self)¶

Returns the face name associated with the font, or the empty string if there is no face information.

Return type: string

See also

SetFaceName

GetFamily(self)¶

Gets the font family if possible.

As described in wx.FontFamily docs the returned value acts as a rough, basic classification of the main font properties (look, spacing).

If the current font face name is not recognized by wx.Font or by the underlying system, FONTFAMILY_DEFAULT is returned.

Note that currently this function is not very precise and so not particularly useful. Font families mostly make sense only for font creation, see SetFamily .

Return type: wx.FontFamily

See also

SetFamily

GetFractionalPointSize(self)¶

Gets the point size as a floating number.

Return type: float

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.2.

See also

SetPointSize(float)

GetHFONT(self)¶: Returns the font’s native handle.

GetNativeFontInfo(self)¶

Returns a font with the same face/size as the given one but with normal weight and style and not underlined nor stricken through.

Return type: wx.NativeFontInfo

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.0.

GetNativeFontInfoDesc(self)¶

Returns the platform-dependent string completely describing this font.

Returned string is always non-empty unless the font is invalid (in which case an assert is triggered).

Note that the returned string is not meant to be shown or edited by the user: a typical use of this function is for serializing in string-form a wx.Font object.

Return type: string

GetNativeFontInfoUserDesc(self)¶

Returns a user-friendly string for this font object.

Returned string is always non-empty unless the font is invalid (in which case an assert is triggered).

The string does not encode all wx.Font infos under all platforms; e.g. under wxMSW the font family is not present in the returned string.

Some examples of the formats of returned strings (which are platform-dependent) are in SetNativeFontInfoUserDesc .

Return type: string

GetNumericWeight(self)¶

Gets the font weight as an integer value.

See wx.FontWeight for a list of valid weight identifiers and their corresponding integer value.

Return type: int

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.2.

See also

SetWeight

See also

SetNumericWeight

static GetNumericWeightOf(weight)¶

Get the raw weight value corresponding to the given symbolic constant.

For compatibility, this function handles the values NORMAL , LIGHT and BOLD , that have values 90, 91 and 92, specially and converts them to the corresponding FONTWEIGHT_XXX weight value.

Parameters: weight (FontWeight) – A valid element of FontWeight enum, i.e. this argument can’t have value FONTWEIGHT_INVALID.
Return type: int
Returns: Numeric weight, between 1 and 1000.

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.2.

GetPangoFontDescription(self)¶: Returns the font’s native handle.

GetPixelSize(self)¶

Gets the pixel size.

Note that under wxMSW if you passed to SetPixelSize (or to the constructor) a wx.Size object with a null width value, you’ll get a null width in the returned object.

Return type: wx.Size

See also

SetPixelSize

GetPointSize(self)¶

Gets the point size as an integer number.

This function is kept for compatibility reasons. New code should use GetFractionalPointSize and support fractional point sizes.

Return type: int

See also

SetPointSize ,

See also

GetFractionalPointSize

GetStrikethrough(self)¶

Returns True if the font is stricken-through, False otherwise.

Return type: bool

New in version 2.9.4.

See also

SetStrikethrough

GetStyle(self)¶

Gets the font style.

See wx.FontStyle for a list of valid styles.

Return type: wx.FontStyle

See also

SetStyle

GetUnderlined(self)¶

Returns True if the font is underlined, False otherwise.

Return type: bool

See also

SetUnderlined

GetWeight(self)¶

Gets the font weight.

See wx.FontWeight for a list of valid weight identifiers.

Return type: wx.FontWeight

See also

SetWeight

IsFixedWidth(self)¶

Returns True if the font is a fixed width (or monospaced) font, False if it is a proportional one or font is invalid.

Note that this function under some platforms is different from just testing for the font family being equal to FONTFAMILY_TELETYPE because native platform-specific functions are used for the check (resulting in a more accurate return value).

Return type: bool

IsOk(self)¶

Returns True if this object is a valid font, False otherwise.

Return type: bool

Italic(self)¶

Returns an italic version of this font.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

MakeItalic

Larger(self)¶

Returns a larger version of this font.

The font size is multiplied by 1.2 , the factor of 1.2 being inspired by the W3C CSS specification.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

MakeLarger , Smaller , Scaled

MakeBold(self)¶

Changes this font to be bold.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Bold

MakeItalic(self)¶

Changes this font to be italic.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Italic

MakeLarger(self)¶

Changes this font to be larger.

The font size is multiplied by 1.2 , the factor of 1.2 being inspired by the W3C CSS specification.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Larger , MakeSmaller , Scale

MakeSmaller(self)¶

Changes this font to be smaller.

The font size is divided by 1.2 , the factor of 1.2 being inspired by the W3C CSS specification.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Smaller , MakeLarger , Scale

MakeStrikethrough(self)¶

Changes this font to be stricken-through.

Currently stricken-through fonts are only supported in wxMSW, wxGTK, and wxOSX.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.4.

See also

Strikethrough

MakeUnderlined(self)¶

Changes this font to be underlined.

Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.2.

See also

Underlined

static New(*args, **kw)¶

This function takes the same parameters as the relative Font constructor and returns a new font object allocated on the heap.

Their use is discouraged, use wx.Font constructor from wx.FontInfo instead.

Overloaded Implementations:

New (pointSize, family, style, weight, underline=False, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Parameters

pointSize (int) –
family (FontFamily) –
style (FontStyle) –
weight (FontWeight) –
underline (bool) –
faceName (string) –
encoding (FontEncoding) –

Return type

wx.Font

New (pointSize, family, flags=FONTFLAG_DEFAULT, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Parameters

pointSize (int) –
family (FontFamily) –
flags (int) –
faceName (string) –
encoding (FontEncoding) –

Return type

wx.Font

New (pixelSize, family, style, weight, underline=False, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Parameters

pixelSize (wx.Size) –
family (FontFamily) –
style (FontStyle) –
weight (FontWeight) –
underline (bool) –
faceName (string) –
encoding (FontEncoding) –

Return type

wx.Font

New (pixelSize, family, flags=FONTFLAG_DEFAULT, faceName=””, encoding=FONTENCODING_DEFAULT)

Parameters

pixelSize (wx.Size) –
family (FontFamily) –
flags (int) –
faceName (string) –
encoding (FontEncoding) –

Return type

wx.Font

New (nativeInfo)

Parameters: nativeInfo (wx.NativeFontInfo) –
Return type: wx.Font

New (nativeInfoString)

Parameters: nativeInfoString (string) –
Return type: wx.Font

OSXGetCGFont(self)¶: Returns the font’s native handle.

Scale(self, x)¶

Changes the size of this font.

The font size is multiplied by the given factor (which may be less than 1 to create a smaller version of the font).

Parameters: x (float) –
Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Scaled , MakeLarger , MakeSmaller

Scaled(self, x)¶

Returns a scaled version of this font.

The font size is multiplied by the given factor (which may be less than 1 to create a smaller version of the font).

Parameters: x (float) –
Return type: wx.Font

New in version 2.9.1.

See also

Scale , Larger , Smaller

static SetDefaultEncoding(encoding)¶

Sets the default font encoding.

Parameters: encoding (FontEncoding) –

See also

Font Encodings, GetDefaultEncoding

SetEncoding(self, encoding)¶

Sets the encoding for this font.

Note that under wxGTK this function has no effect (because the underlying Pango library always uses FONTENCODING_UTF8 ).

Parameters: encoding (FontEncoding) –

See also

GetEncoding

SetFaceName(self, faceName)¶

Sets the facename for the font.

Parameters: faceName (string) – A valid facename, which should be on the end-user’s system.
Return type: bool
Returns: True if the given face name exists; if the face name doesn’t exist in the user’s system then the font is invalidated (so that IsOk will return False) and False is returned.

Note

To avoid portability problems, don’t rely on a specific face, but specify the font family instead (see wx.FontFamily and SetFamily ).

See also

GetFaceName , SetFamily

SetFamily(self, family)¶

Sets the font family.

As described in wx.FontFamily docs the given family value acts as a rough, basic indication of the main font properties (look, spacing).

Note that changing the font family results in changing the font face name.

Parameters: family (FontFamily) – One of the wx.FontFamily values.

See also

GetFamily , SetFaceName

SetFractionalPointSize(self, pointSize)¶

Sets the font size in points.

The point size is defined as 1/72 of the Anglo-Saxon inch (25.4 mm): it is approximately 0.0139 inch or 352.8 um.

Parameters: pointSize (float) – Size in points. This can also be a fractional point size like 11.5.

New in version 4.1/wxWidgets-3.1.2.

SetNativeFontInfo(self, *args, **kw)¶

Overloaded Implementations:

SetNativeFontInfo (self, info)

Creates the font corresponding to the given native font description string which must have been previously returned by GetNativeFontInfoDesc .

If the string is invalid, font is unchanged. This function is typically used for de-serializing a wx.Font object previously saved in a string-form.

Parameters: info (string) –
Return type: bool
Returns: True if the creation was successful.

See also

SetNativeFontInfoUserDesc

SetNativeFontInfo (self, info)

Sets the encoding for this font.

Note that under wxGTK this function has no effect (because the underlying Pango library always uses FONTENCODING_UTF8 ).

Parameters: info (wx.NativeFontInfo) –

See also

GetEncoding

SetNativeFontInfoUserDesc(self, info)¶

Creates the font corresponding to the given native font description string and returns True if the creation was successful.

Unlike SetNativeFontInfo , this function accepts strings which are user-friendly. Examples of accepted string formats are:

platform	generic syntax	example
wxGTK2	`[underlined] [strikethrough] [FACE-NAME] [bold] [oblique\|italic] [POINTSIZE]`	Monospace bold 10
wxMSW	`[light\|bold] [italic] [FACE-NAME] [POINTSIZE] [ENCODING]`	Tahoma 10 `WINDOWS-1252`

For more detailed information about the allowed syntaxes you can look at the documentation of the native API used for font-rendering (e.g. pango_font_description_from_string under GTK, although notice that it doesn’t support the “underlined” and “strikethrough” attributes and so those are handled by wxWidgets itself).

Note that unlike SetNativeFontInfo , this function doesn’t always restore all attributes of the wx.Font object under all platforms; e.g. on wxMSW the font family is not restored (because GetNativeFontInfoUserDesc doesn’t return it on wxMSW). If you want to serialize/deserialize a font in string form, you should use GetNativeFontInfoDesc and SetNativeFontInfo instead.

Parameters: info (string) –
Return type: bool

See also

SetNativeFontInfo

Todo

add an example for Mac

SetNumericWeight(self, weight)¶

Sets the font weight using an integer value.

See wx.FontWeight for a list of valid weight identifiers and their corresponding integer value.

Parameters: weight (int) – An integer value int the range 1-1000.

See also

GetNumericWeight

SetPixelSize(self, pixelSize)¶

Sets the pixel size.

The height parameter of pixelSize must be positive while the width parameter may also be zero (to indicate that you’re not interested in the width of the characters: a suitable width will be chosen for best rendering).

This feature (specifying the font pixel size) is directly supported only under wxMSW and wxGTK currently; under other platforms a font with the closest size to the given one is found using binary search (this maybe slower).

Parameters: pixelSize (wx.Size) –

See also

GetPixelSize

SetPointSize(self, pointSize)¶

Sets the font size in points to an integer value.

This is a legacy version of the function only supporting integer point sizes. It can still be used, but to avoid unnecessarily restricting the font size in points to integer values, consider using the new (added in wxWidgets 3.1.2) SetFractionalPointSize function instead.