on the fly text overlay for GD generated image?!

[chiprivers]

I am just starting to get my head around using GD (I have found a really good tutorial for beginners here http://www.nyphp.org/content/presentations/GDintro/gd1.php.

 

The end result I am looking for will be an image depicting a stack of polaroid photos with a string of text written on the tab of the top polaroid.  I am now ok (I think!?) with taking a given image and resixing it, rotating and positioning it onto a background image holding the stack of photos.  What I need to do now is generate the text to write on the bottom of the polaroid tab.

 

From the tutorial I have been using I am assuming that I can only add text using a limited selection of fonts which don't suit my requirements.  Can somebody help me with a solution to this?

 

I need to be able to either write using a different font or create another image on the fly with the writing to merge with the project image.

[MadTechie]

imagettftext

<?php
// Set the content-type
header("Content-type: image/png");

// Create the image
$im = imagecreatetruecolor(400, 30);

// Create some colors
$white = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
$grey = imagecolorallocate($im, 128, 128, 128);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0);
imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 399, 29, $white);

// The text to draw
$text = 'Testing...';
// Replace path by your own font path
$font = 'arial.ttf'; //<--- ADD FONT HERE

// Add some shadow to the text
imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 11, 21, $grey, $font, $text);

// Add the text
imagettftext($im, 20, 0, 10, 20, $black, $font, $text);

// Using imagepng() results in clearer text compared with imagejpeg()
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>