d.text - GRASS GIS manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: d.text: Draws text in the active display frame on the graphics monitor using the current font.
Keywords: display, cartography

## NAME

d.text - Draws text in the active display frame on the graphics monitor using the current font.

## KEYWORDS

display, cartography

## SYNOPSIS

d.text
d.text --help
d.text [-pgbrs] [text=string] [input=name] [color=string] [bgcolor=string] [rotation=float] [linespacing=float] [at=x,y] [line=integer] [align=string] [font=string] [size=float] [path=name] [charset=string] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

### Flags:

-p
  Screen position in pixels ([0,0] is top left)
-g
  Screen position in geographic coordinates
-b
  Use bold text
-r
  Use radians instead of degrees for rotation
-s
  Font size is height in pixels
--help
  Print usage summary
--verbose
  Verbose module output
--quiet
  Quiet module output
--ui
  Force launching GUI dialog

### Parameters:

text=string
  Text to display
input=name
  Input file
color=string
  Text color, either a standard GRASS color or R:G:B triplet
  Default: gray
bgcolor=string
  Text background color, either a standard GRASS color or R:G:B triplet
rotation=float
  Rotation angle in degrees (counter-clockwise)
  Default: 0
linespacing=float
  Line spacing
  Default: 1.25
at=x,y
  Screen position at which text will begin to be drawn (percentage, [0,0] is lower left)
line=integer
  The screen line number on which text will begin to be drawn
  Options: 1-1000
align=string
  Text alignment
  Options: ll, lc, lr, cl, cc, cr, ul, uc, ur
  Default: ll
font=string
  Font name
size=float
  Height of letters in percentage of available frame height
  Options: 0-100
  Default: 5
path=name
  Path to font file
charset=string
  Text encoding (only applicable to TrueType fonts)

## DESCRIPTION

d.text draws text in the active display frame on the graphics monitor. Text can be provided through standard input or redirected from a file (using the UNIX redirection mechanism). In addition to the options provided on the command line, colors, text size, font type, rotation angle, and boldness can be adjusted with commands in the standard input (i.e., if the user invokes d.text without options on the command line, and then assigns values to these options on lines within the standard input).

### Commands:

.C color
  (where color is one of the available colors) causes text appearing on subsequent lines to be drawn in that color.
.G color
  (where color is one of the available colors) causes the background of text appearing on subsequent lines to be drawn in that color.
.S size
  (where size is a percentage within the range 0 to 100) adjusts text size. Note that a size of 10 would allow 10 lines to be drawn in the active display frame, 5 would allow the drawing of 20 lines, and 50 would allow the drawing of 2 lines.

.F font
  (where font is one of the fonts known by the GRASS program d.font) manipulates the font type. Available fonts are listed in the GRASS manual entry for d.font. The default font type used (if unspecified by the user) is romans.
.R rotation
  (where rotation is an angle in degrees, counter-clockwise) to rotate the text.
.B 1
  stipulates that following text be printed in bold. This command means bold on.
.B 0
  turns bold off of all text appearing on lines beneath it. (Bold off is used by default, if unspecified by the user.)

## EXAMPLE

The following command will print the short phrase "This is a test of d.text" in the active display frame using the color yellow, in bold, and using 4/100'ths (4%) of the active frame's vertical space per line:

    d.text text="This is a test of d.text" color=yellow bgcolor=gray size=4

Displayed Text

## NOTES

Note that the GRASS command d.title creates map TITLEs in a format suitable for input to d.text.

d.text needs escape sequences that can be used within lines to change colors, boldness, and perhaps size.

## SEE ALSO

d.font
d.title
d.labels

## AUTHOR

James Westervelt, U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

Updates by Huidae Cho

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: d.text source code (history)

Accessed: Wednesday Jun 03 04:18:56 2026

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© 2003-2023 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 7.8.8 Reference Manual