A text static control displays text in a rectangle in one of five styles: left-aligned without wordwrap, left aligned with wordwrap, centered, right-aligned, or "simple." These styles are defined by the constants SS_LEFTNOWORDWRAP, SS_LEFT, SS_CENTER, SS_RIGHT, and SS_SIMPLE, respectively. Windows rearranges the text in these controls in predefined ways, except for "simple" text, which is not rearranged.
An application can change the text in a text static control at any time by using the SetWindowText function or the WM_SETTEXT message.
The system displays as much text as it can in the static control and clips whatever does not fit. To calculate an appropriate size for the control, retrieve the font metrics for the text. For more information about fonts and font metrics, see Fonts and Text.