TabbedTextOut

The TabbedTextOut function writes a character string at a specified location, expanding tabs to the values specified in an array of tab-stop positions. Text is written in the currently selected font, background color, and text color.

LONG TabbedTextOut(
  HDC hDC,                    // handle to device context
  int X,                      // x-coordinate of starting position
  int Y,                      // y-coordinate of starting position
  LPCTSTR lpString,           // pointer to string
  int nCount,                 // number of characters in string
  int nTabPositions,          // number of tabs in array
  LPINT lpnTabStopPositions,  // pointer to array for tab positions
  int nTabOrigin              // x-coordinate for tab expansion
);
 

Parameters

hDC

Handle to the device context.

X

Specifies the x-coordinate of the starting point of the string, in logical units.

Y

Specifies the y-coordinate of the starting point of the string, in logical units.

lpString

Pointer to the character string to draw. The string does not need to be zero-terminated, since nCount specifies the length of the string.

nCount

Specifies the number of characters in the string.

nTabPositions

Specifies the number of values in the array of tab-stop positions.

lpnTabStopPositions

Pointer to an array containing the tab-stop positions, in device units. The tab stops must be sorted in increasing order; the smallest x-value should be the first item in the array.

Windows 95: A tab stop can be specified as a negative value, which causes text to be right-aligned on the tab stop rather than left-aligned.

nTabOrigin

Specifies the x-coordinate of the starting position from which tabs are expanded, in logical units.

Return Values

If the function succeeds, the return value is the dimensions, in logical units, of the string. The height is in the high-order word and the width is in the low-order word.

If the function fails, the return value is zero.

Windows NT: To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

If the nTabPositions parameter is zero and the lpnTabStopPositions parameter is NULL, tabs are expanded to eight times the average character width.

If nTabPositions is 1, the tab stops are separated by the distance specified by the first value in the lpnTabStopPositions array.

If the lpnTabStopPositions array contains more than one value, a tab stop is set for each value in the array, up to the number specified by nTabPositions.

The nTabOrigin parameter allows an application to call the TabbedTextOut function several times for a single line. If the application calls TabbedTextOut more than once with the nTabOrigin set to the same value each time, the function expands all tabs relative to the position specified by nTabOrigin.

By default, the current position is not used or updated by the TabbedTextOut function. If an application needs to update the current position when it calls TabbedTextOut, the application can call the SetTextAlign function with the wFlags parameter set to TA_UPDATECP. When this flag is set, the system ignores the X and Y parameters on subsequent calls to the TabbedTextOut function, using the current position instead.

QuickInfo

  Windows NT: Requires version 3.1 or later.
  Windows: Requires Windows 95 or later.
  Windows CE: Unsupported.
  Header: Declared in winuser.h.
  Import Library: Use user32.lib.
  Unicode: Implemented as Unicode and ANSI versions on Windows NT.

See Also

Fonts and Text Overview, Font and Text Functions, DrawText, GetTabbedTextExtent, GrayString, SelectObject, SetBkColor, SetTextAlign, SetTextColor, TextOut