---
Title: Rendering with Cairo
---

# Rendering with Cairo

The Cairo library is a vector graphics library with a powerful rendering model.
It has such features as anti-aliased primitives, alpha-compositing, and gradients.
Multiple backends for Cairo are available, to allow rendering to images, to PDF
files, and to the screen on X and on other windowing systems. The functions in
this section allow using Pango to render to Cairo surfaces.

Using Pango with Cairo is straightforward. A `PangoContext` created with
pango_cairo_font_map_create_context() can be used on any Cairo context (`cairo_t`),
but needs to be updated to match the current transformation matrix and target
surface of the Cairo context using pango_cairo_update_context(). The convenience
functions pango_cairo_create_layout() and pango_cairo_update_layout() handle
the common case where the program doesn't need to manipulate the properties of
the `PangoContext`.

When you get the metrics of a layout or of a piece of a layout using functions
such as pango_layout_get_extents(), the reported metrics are in user-space
coordinates. If a piece of text is 10 units long, and you call
`cairo_scale (cr, 2.0)`, it still is more-or-less 10 units long. However, the
results will be affected by hinting (that is, the process of adjusting the text
to look good on the pixel grid), so you shouldn't assume they are completely
independent of the current transformation matrix. Note that the basic metrics
functions in Pango report results in integer Pango units. To get to the floating
point units used in Cairo divide by `PANGO_SCALE`.

## Using Pango with Cairo

```
#include <math.h>
#include <pango/pangocairo.h>

#define RADIUS 150
#define N_WORDS 10
#define FONT "Sans Bold 27"

static void
draw_text (cairo_t *cr)
{
  PangoLayout *layout;
  PangoFontDescription *desc;
  int i;

  /* Center coordinates on the middle of the region we are drawing */
  cairo_translate (cr, RADIUS, RADIUS);

  /* Create a PangoLayout, set the font and text */
  layout = pango_cairo_create_layout (cr);

  pango_layout_set_text (layout, "Text", -1);
  desc = pango_font_description_from_string (FONT);
  pango_layout_set_font_description (layout, desc);
  pango_font_description_free (desc);

  /* Draw the layout N_WORDS times in a circle */
  for (i = 0; i < N_WORDS; i++)
    {
      int width, height;
      double angle = (360. * i) / N_WORDS;
      double red;

      cairo_save (cr);

      /* Gradient from red at angle == 60 to blue at angle == 240 */
      red   = (1 + cos ((angle - 60) * G_PI / 180.)) / 2;
      cairo_set_source_rgb (cr, red, 0, 1.0 - red);

      cairo_rotate (cr, angle * G_PI / 180.);

      /* Inform Pango to re-layout the text with the new transformation */
      pango_cairo_update_layout (cr, layout);

      pango_layout_get_size (layout, &width, &height);
      cairo_move_to (cr, - ((double)width / PANGO_SCALE) / 2, - RADIUS);
      pango_cairo_show_layout (cr, layout);

      cairo_restore (cr);
    }

  /* free the layout object */
  g_object_unref (layout);
}

int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
  cairo_t *cr;
  char *filename;
  cairo_status_t status;
  cairo_surface_t *surface;

  if (argc != 2)
    {
      g_printerr ("Usage: cairosimple OUTPUT_FILENAME\n");
      return 1;
    }

  filename = argv[1];

  surface = cairo_image_surface_create (CAIRO_FORMAT_ARGB32,
                                        2 * RADIUS, 2 * RADIUS);
  cr = cairo_create (surface);

  cairo_set_source_rgb (cr, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
  cairo_paint (cr);
  draw_text (cr);
  cairo_destroy (cr);

  status = cairo_surface_write_to_png (surface, filename);
  cairo_surface_destroy (surface);

  if (status != CAIRO_STATUS_SUCCESS)
    {
      g_printerr ("Could not save png to '%s'\n", filename);
      return 1;
    }

  return 0;
}
```

Once you build and run the example code above, you should see the
following result:

![Output of rotated-example](rotated-text.png)
