A FontFamily represents a set of typefaces that share a common design, varying in particular stylistic ways. The fonts Arial, Arial Bold, and Arial Italic might make up a font family called Arial, for example.

A FontFamily is a resource-based object, and therefore its lifetime should be carefully managed, calling Dispose() to release the resources when they are no longer needed.

It can be constructed from a string containing the family name, from an entry in the System.Drawing.Text.GenericFontFamilies enumeration, or by providing a name to associate with a specific System.Drawing.Text.FontCollection, if you want to create your own family. In addition, there are static properties to get a GenericMonospace, GenericSansSerif, or GenericSerifFontFamily.

You can use a FontFamily to help manage font selection in your application—often where font selection is being determined through a user interface. To do this, there are Font constructors that enable you to select and instantiate a specific Font from a FontFamily.

public sealed class FontFamily : MarshalByRefObject : IDisposable {
// Public Constructors
   public FontFamily(System.Drawing.Text.GenericFontFamilies genericFamily);
   public FontFamily(string name);
   public FontFamily(string name, System.Drawing.Text.FontCollection fontCollection);
// Public Static Properties
   public static FontFamily[ ] Families{get; }
   public static FontFamily GenericMonospace{get; }
   public static FontFamily GenericSansSerif{get; }
   public static FontFamily GenericSerif{get; }
// Public Instance Properties
   public string Name{get; }
// Public Static Methods
   public static FontFamily[ ] GetFamilies(Graphics graphics);
// Public Instance Methods
   public void Dispose();  // implements IDisposable
   public override bool Equals(object obj);  // overrides object
   public int GetCellAscent(FontStyle style);
   public int GetCellDescent(FontStyle style);
   public int GetEmHeight(FontStyle style);
   public override int GetHashCode();  // overrides object
   public int GetLineSpacing(FontStyle style);
   public string GetName(int language);
   public bool IsStyleAvailable(FontStyle style);
   public override string ToString();  // overrides object
// Protected Instance Methods
   protected override void Finalize();  // overrides object
}

Hierarchy

System.Object System.MarshalByRefObject FontFamily(System.IDisposable)

Returned By

Font.FontFamily, System.Drawing.Text.FontCollection.Families

Passed To

System.Drawing.Drawing2D.GraphicsPath.AddString(), Font.Font()