HOWTO: Change the Font Used by Dialog Controls in Windows

ID: Q74737

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Win32 Software Development Kit (SDK)
Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.1
Microsoft Windows 2000

SUMMARY

In Windows 3.x, there are two ways to specify the font used by dialog controls:

The FONT statement can be used in the dialog template to specify the font used by ALL the controls in the dialog box.

The WM_SETFONT message can be sent to one or more dialog controls during the processing of the WM_INITDIALOG message.

If a font is specified in the dialog template, the controls will use a bold version of that font. The following code demonstrates how to change the font used by dialog box controls to a nonbold font using WM_SETFONT. The font should be deleted with DeleteObject() when the dialog box is closed.

Sample Code


   HWND hDlg;
   HFONT hDlgFont;
   LOGFONT lFont;

   case WM_INITDIALOG:
       /* Get dialog font and create non-bold version */ 
       hDlgFont = NULL;
       if ((hDlgFont = (HFONT)SendMessage(hDlg, WM_GETFONT, 0, 0L))
                != NULL)
          {
          if (GetObject(hDlgFont, sizeof(LOGFONT), (LPSTR)&lFont)
                    != NULL)
             {
             lFont.lfWeight = FW_NORMAL;
             if ((hDlgFont = CreateFontIndirect(&lFont)) != NULL)
                {
                SendDlgItemMessage(hDlg, CTR1, WM_SETFONT, hDlgFont, 0L);
                // Send WM_SETFONT message to desired controls
                }
             }
          }
       else  // user did not specify a font in the dialog template
          {  // must simulate system font
          lFont.lfHeight = 13;
          lFont.lfWidth = 0;
          lFont.lfEscapement = 0;
          lFont.lfOrientation = 0;
          lFont.lfWeight = 200; // non-bold font weight
          lFont.lfItalic = 0;
          lFont.lfUnderline = 0;
          lFont.lfStrikeOut = 0;
          lFont.lfCharSet = ANSI_CHARSET;
          lFont.lfOutPrecision = OUT_DEFAULT_PRECIS;
          lFont.lfClipPrecision = CLIP_DEFAULT_PRECIS;
          lFont.lfQuality = DEFAULT_QUALITY;
          lFont.lfPitchAndFamily = VARIABLE_PITCH | FF_SWISS;
          lFont.lfFaceName[0] = NULL;
          hDlgFont = CreateFontIndirect(&lFont);

          SendDlgItemMessage(hDlg, CTR1, WM_SETFONT, hDlgFont,
             (DWORD)TRUE);
          // Send WM_SETFONT message to desired controls
          }

      return TRUE;
      break;

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbDlg kbNTOS kbWinOS2000 kbSDKWin32 kbGrpUser kbWinOS
Version : WINDOWS:3.1
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto