How to Create an Image in PHP

PHP makes it very easy to do many things needed on a website, among which is to create an image. The ability to generate an image in PHP can be useful if you want to do things like create CAPTCHA images, or even design a banner or logo on the fly the way some free blogging software do.

By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to create or modify an existing image using PHP, set the colours of its background, the text and the lines you draw, write text to that image, draw a line and set its thickness. You will also be able to either send that image to a web browser or to save it as a file. Armed with this basic foundation, you will also be able to knowledgeably explore further and perform more complex operations on images using PHP if you wish.



Prerequisites

Note: If you are here looking for an article on how to create banners or logos for your website, and not strictly for an article on how to write PHP scripts to generate such images, you may find my article on How to Create a Logo for Your Site the Quick and Easy Way more relevant.

1.Basic PHP Knowledge

I will assume that you already have some basic knowledge of how to write PHP programs. If not, you may wish to check out my basic PHP tutorial, How to Program in PHP.

2.Your PHP Must Have Been Compiled with the GD Library

For any of the functions listed here to be available, your PHP interpreter must have been compiled with the GD library. If you are using the PHP provided by a commercial web host, this is probably already provided as a standard feature.

3. FreeType Must Be Compiled for TrueType Font Support

If you want TrueType font support, your PHP must have FreeType support compiled into it as well.



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