PHP | imagechar() Function

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

The imagechar() function is an inbuilt function in PHP which is used to draw a character horizontally. This function draws the first character of string in the image identified by image with its x and y-axis. The coordinate of the top-left corner is (0, 0). Syntax:

bool imagechar( $image, $font, $x, $y, $c, $color )

Parameters: This function accepts six parameters as mentioned above and described below:

$image: It is returned by one of the image creation functions, such as imagecreatetruecolor(). It is used to create size of image.
$font: This parameter is used to set font size of character. Its value can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for built-in fonts in latin2 encoding. The higher numbers represents the larger fonts and small number represent small font.
$x: This parameter is used to set x-coordinate to print character in image.
$y: This parameter is used to set y-coordinate to print character in image.
$c: The character which is printed.
$color: It sets the color of image. A color identifier created by imagecolorallocate() function.

Return Value: This function returns true on success or false on failure. Below programs illustrate the imagechar() function in PHP: Program 1:

php

<?php

// Creates image size
$image = imagecreate(400, 300);

$string = 'GeeksForGeeks';

// Set background color
$bg = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 153, 0);

// Set text color.
$white = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);

// Prints a white G character
imagechar($image, 5, 190, 150, $string, $white);

header('Content-type: image/png');
imagepng($image);

?>

Output:

Program 2:

php

<?php

// Create image size
$image = imagecreate(400, 300);

$string = 'GeeksforGeeks';

// Find string length
$len = strlen($string);

// Set background color
$bg = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 153, 0);

// Set text color
$white = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);

for($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++)

    // Prints white character of string using loop
    imagechar($image, 6, 190 + 10 * $i, 150, $string[$i], $white);

header('Content-type: image/png');
imagepng($image);

?>