Posted by Erwin Moller on 10/07/05 10:47

AP wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a tutorial or sample that will help me understand
> as simply as possible how to do the following:
>
> Background: I have a webserver with MySQL and PHP enabled
>
> I want to have a graphic file, like a banner or a button, where it is a
> picture of something, and there is text in the image. I want the text
> to be dynamic based on some varible that I pass to it.
>
> My background is in VB programming and Im trying to learn php, but I
> really interested in the dynamic graphics. So I have no idea where to
> start with the graphics, I have photoshop at my disposal.
>
> Any help is appreciated.

Hi AP,

Are you running PHP on a GNU/Linux system?
If so, chances are you have GD libs enabled/installed on your system.
The GD libs are the graphical libs that PHP can use to modify images the
easy way.

You can check this by calling php_info() from a page.
Search for GD

If it is there: good. Preferably version 2.

If that is ok, go to www.php.net and type 'image' in the search-for
searchbox (select function list).

Now you will arrive at a page that seems intimidating complex, but is
actually not, so just read it. Look at the table of content with all the
hyperlinks to the imagefunctions.

You will end up using functions like imagecreatefromjpeg() and the like.
The site is filled with examples too.

If however you are on a W$ machine, I have no idea how to use images in PHP.

Good luck.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

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