docs-desktop/dotnet-desktop-guide/framework/wpf/advanced/introduction-to-the-glyphrun-object-and-glyphs-element.md

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title	ms.date	helpviewer_keywords	ms.assetid
Introduction to the GlyphRun Object and Glyphs Element	03/30/2017	typography [WPF], Glyphs element Glyphs elements [WPF] GlyphRun object [WPF] text [WPF], glyphs glyphs [WPF] typography [WPF], GlyphRun object	746ca769-a331-4435-9b95-f72a883b67c1

Introduction to the GlyphRun Object and Glyphs Element

This topic describes the xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun object and the xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs element.

Introduction to GlyphRun

[!INCLUDETLA#tla_winclient] provides advanced text support including glyph-level markup with direct access to xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs for customers who want to intercept and persist text after formatting. These features provide critical support for the different text rendering requirements in each of the following scenarios.

1. Screen display of fixed-format documents.

2. Print scenarios.

   • [!INCLUDETLA#tla_xaml] as a device printer language.

   • Microsoft XPS Document Writer.

   • Previous printer drivers, output from Win32 applications to the fixed format.

   • Print spool format.

3. Fixed-format document representation, including clients for previous versions of Windows and other computing devices.

Note

xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs and xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun are designed for fixed-format document presentation and print scenarios. [!INCLUDETLA#tla_winclient] provides several elements for general layout and [!INCLUDETLA#tla_ui] scenarios such as xref:System.Windows.Controls.Label and xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock. For more information on layout and [!INCLUDETLA2#tla_ui] scenarios, see the Typography in WPF.

The GlyphRun Object

The xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun object represents a sequence of glyphs from a single face of a single font at a single size, and with a single rendering style.

xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun includes both font details such as glyph xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.Indices%2A and individual glyph positions. It also includes the original Unicode code points the run was generated from, character-to-glyph buffer offset mapping information, and per-character and per-glyph flags.

xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun has a corresponding high-level xref:System.Windows.FrameworkElement, xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs. xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs can be used in the element tree and in [!INCLUDETLA2#tla_xaml] markup to represent xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun output.

The Glyphs Element

The xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs element represents the output of a xref:System.Windows.Media.GlyphRun in [!INCLUDETLA2#tla_xaml]. The following markup syntax is used to describe the xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs element.

[!code-xamlGlyphsOvwSample1#1]

The following property definitions correspond to the first four attributes in the sample markup.

Property	Description
xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.FontUri%2A	Specifies a resource identifier: file name, Web uniform resource identifier (URI), or resource reference in the application .exe or container.
xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.FontRenderingEmSize%2A	Specifies the font size in drawing surface units (default is .96 inches).
xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.StyleSimulations%2A	Specifies flags for bold and Italic styles.
xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.BidiLevel%2A	Specifies the bidirectional layout level. Even-numbered and zero values imply left-to-right layout; odd-numbered values imply right-to-left layout.

Indices property

The xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.Indices%2A property is a string of glyph specifications. Where a sequence of glyphs forms a single cluster, the specification of the first glyph in the cluster is preceded by a specification of how many glyphs and how many code points combine to form the cluster. The xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs.Indices%2A property collects in one string the following properties.

• Glyph indices

• Glyph advance widths

• Combining glyph attachment vectors

• Cluster mapping from code points to glyphs

• Glyph flags

Each glyph specification has the following form.

[GlyphIndex][,[Advance][,[uOffset][,[vOffset][,[Flags]]]]]

Glyph Metrics

Each glyph defines metrics that specify how it aligns with other xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs. The following graphic defines the various typographic qualities of two different glyph characters.

Glyphs Markup

The following code example shows how to use various properties of the xref:System.Windows.Documents.Glyphs element in [!INCLUDETLA2#tla_xaml].

[!code-xamlGlyphsOvwSamp2#1]

See also

• Typography in WPF
• Documents in WPF
• Text