Using Text Attributes to Style Text

Applications typically need the capability to apply the following text attributes:

Underline - A line that is drawn underneath text
Strikethrough - A horizontal line that is drawn through the text
Superscript or Subscript - A text or a letter that appears slightly above a line or correspondingly below a line
Kerning - The adjustment of the space between characters

These and other text attributes can be applied by using the Java 2D TextAttribute class.

To apply these text attributes by add them to a Font object. For example:

Map<TextAttribute, Object> map =
 new Hashtable<TextAttribute, Object>();
map.put(TextAttribute.KERNING,
 TextAttribute.KERNING_ON);
font = font.deriveFont(map);
graphics.setFont(font);

The code example represented below shows the application of text attributes in the following order:

Sample string (no text attributes applied)
Kerning
Kerning and Underlining
Kerning,Underlining and Strikethrough
Kerning,Underlining, Strikethrough and Color

Note: If you don't see the applet running, you need to install at least the Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 7 release.

The complete code for this applet is in AttributedText.java.