CanvasRenderingContext2D.strokeText

The CanvasRenderingContext2D.strokeText() method of the Canvas 2D API strokes — that is, draws the outlines of — the characters of a specified text string at the given (x, y) position. If the optional fourth parameter for a maximum width is provided, the text is scaled to fit that width.

See the CanvasRenderingContext2D.fillText() method to draw the text with the characters filled with color rather than having just their outlines drawn.

Syntax

void ctx.strokeText(text, x, y [, maxWidth]);

Parameters

text

The text to draw using the current font, textAlign, textBaseline, and direction values.

x

The x axis of the coordinate for the text starting point.

y

The y axis of the coordinate for the text starting point.

maxWidth Optional

The maximum width to draw. If specified, and the string is computed to be wider than this width, the font is adjusted to use a more horizontally condensed font (if one is available or if a reasonably readable one can be synthesized by scaling the current font horizontally) or a smaller font.

Examples

Using the strokeText method

This is just a simple code snippet which uses the strokeText() method to draw the text.

HTML

<canvas id="canvas"></canvas>

JavaScript

var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

ctx.font = '48px serif';
ctx.strokeText('Hello world', 50, 100);

Edit the code below and see your changes update live in the canvas:

Playable code

<canvas id="canvas" width="400" height="200" class="playable-canvas"></canvas>
<div class="playable-buttons">
  <input id="edit" type="button" value="Edit" />
  <input id="reset" type="button" value="Reset" />
</div>
<textarea id="code" class="playable-code">
ctx.font = "48px serif";
ctx.strokeText("Hello world", 50, 100);</textarea>

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
var textarea = document.getElementById("code");
var reset = document.getElementById("reset");
var edit = document.getElementById("edit");
var code = textarea.value;

function drawCanvas() {
  ctx.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
  eval(textarea.value);
}

reset.addEventListener("click", function() {
  textarea.value = code;
  drawCanvas();
});

edit.addEventListener("click", function() {
  textarea.focus();
})

textarea.addEventListener("input", drawCanvas);
window.addEventListener("load", drawCanvas);

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Drawing text
• The interface defining it, CanvasRenderingContext2D
• CanvasRenderingContext2D.fillText()