How to increase the quality of text Graphics2D?

Question

I have a question about printing additional information about barcodes. I use http://barbecue.sourceforge.net/ to create my barcodes.

After I created my barcodes, I want to add more information. At the moment, I am doing it as follows! 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 pdf format:

As you can see, the quality of my text (above and below the barcode) is really bad ... How to increase the quality of the text so that the text becomes smoother rather than pixel ?!

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

Any tips?

UPDATE:

So, I added here a photo of my last result ... When I print these barcodes, they look awful! So here is the code I made:

 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 this 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 much more, but some of them I could not use, because then my barcode became blurry! Thus, I am raising the problem that I cannot improve the quality of the text quality of a drawstring from a 2D graphic!

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

Second update:

Some sample code is still ... Make sure the following folder exists: C: \ TestBarcodes \

I hope I have reduced my code to a minimum to imagine that my problem ...

 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 a vector, then the image should be enlarged for better print quality:

 static final int PIXELS_PER_POINT = 4; // 4x 

Then define all sizes in points , not 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 any picture, always use the 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; } 

Thus, with this approach, you can work with standard values. This approach is suitable for me for drawings with low and medium degree of complexity.

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