[python] Python display text with font & color?

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?

I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.

Can I blit text to the screen?

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.

import pygame
pygame.init()

Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:

my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))

Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:

my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))

See also Text and font

Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/@Rabbid76/PyGame-Text

import pygame

pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))

background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
    pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)

run = True
while run:
    clock.tick(60)
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            run = False

    window.blit(background, (0, 0))
    window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/@Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText

import pygame
import pygame.freetype

pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)

background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
    pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)

run = True
while run:
    clock.tick(60)
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            run = False

    window.blit(background, (0, 0))
    text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
    text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
    ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.

def texts(score):
   font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
   scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
   screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))

and I call it using this in my while loop:

texts(score)

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font

pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font

example:

pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)

Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/