.NET Windows Forms in a Nutshell

Name

Font

Synopsis

This class encapsulates a particular visual representation of a textual character set.

A Font is a resource-based object, and its lifetime therefore needs careful management. As with other such objects, you should Dispose() the object when you are finished with it to release the resources back to the system.

There are a number of constructors that allow you to create a Font from a particular FontFamily, or with a particular face Name (represented as a string) and of a particular Size. From the GraphicsUnit enumeration, you can choose which Unit is used to measure the size. Typically, this might be GraphicsUnit.Point or GraphicsUnit.Pixel. In addition, you can specify a variety of Style attributes, including Bold, Italic, Strikeout, and Underline. The style elements can be queried individually using the Boolean properties provided, or by examining the FontStyle object returned from the Style property.

However, it is not possible to set any of these values and change the Font. If you wish to create a new object based on an existing Font but with a different style, you should use the constructor that takes a prototype Font and a new FontStyle (perhaps then calling Dispose() on the original to release it if it is no longer needed). Similarly, to create an object sharing a FontFamily, you can use the constructor that takes a FontFamily and a size.

There are also a number of static members that allow you to create a Font from various entities in interop scenarios, including ...