Resize a Control to Fit Text

Provided by the FMS Development Team

There are times when you want a form to dynamically resize one or more controls to fit their entire text. For example, given a specific text value, you want a textbox that grows wide enough to show the entire string. .NET provides various measurement functions in the System.Graphics library to accomplish this.

The following example code shows how to make a textbox wide enough to accommodate its text.

// C#

   // Determine the correct size for the text box based on its text length     

   // Create a new SizeF object to return the size into

   System.Drawing.SizeF mySize = new System.Drawing.SizeF();

   // Create a new font based on the font of the textbox we want to resize

   System.Drawing.Font myFont = new System.Drawing.Font(this.textBox1.Font.FontFamily, this.textBox1.Font.Size);

   //

   // Or, use this for a specific font and font size.

   // System.Drawing.font myFont = new System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 8);

 

   // Get the size given the string and the font

   mySize = e.Graphics.MeasureString("This is a test", myFont);

 

   // Resize the textbox to accommodate the entire string

   // Me.TextBox1.Width = mySize.Width;

   this.textBox1.Width = (int) Math.Round(mySize.Width, 0);

 

' VB

   ' Determine the correct size for the text box based on its text length

   ' Create a new SizeF object to return the size into

   Dim mySize As New System.Drawing.SizeF

 

   ' Create a new font based on the font of the textbox we want to resize

   Dim myFont As New System.Drawing.Font _

     (Me.TextBox1.Font.FontFamily, Me.TextBox1.Font.Size)

   '

   ' Or, use this for a specific font and font size.

   ' Dim myFont As New System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 8)

 

   ' Get the size given the string and the font

   mySize = e.Graphics.MeasureString("This is a test", myFont)

 

   ' Resize the textbox to accommodate the entire string

   'Me.TextBox1.Width = mySize.Width

   Me.TextBox1.Width = CType(Math.Round(mySize.Width, 0), Integer)