Probably because is not implemented.

:) listctrl->GetItem()->SetFont() is implemented

$ perl -MWx -le " print for grep/font/i, keys %Wx::ListItem:: "
SetFont
GetFont
[download]

Although, its really not that hard to implement :) the hard part is figuring out which version of wxWidgets API it was added in

 sub Wx::ListCtrl::GetItemFont { $_[0]->GetItem($_[1])->GetFont }
sub Wx::ListCtrl::SetItemFont { $_[0]->GetItem($_[1])->SetFont($_[2]) 
+}
[download]

AnonymousMonk: Thank you. Using your post, and the info in this: http://wxpython-users.1045709.n5.nabble.com/column-header-doesn-t-change-td2341548.html (showing that this:

$this->SetItem($item);

is necessary), I succeeded in changing an item's font in Wx::ListCtrl.
Here is the font-changing sub:

sub OnBold {
   my $this = shift;
   my $item = $this->GetItem(1);
   my $f = Wx::Font->new(12, -1, wxNORMAL, wxBOLD, 0, 'times new roman
+');
   say "In OnBold, \$this= $this, \$item = $item, \$f= $f";
   $item->SetFont($f);
   $this->SetItem($item);
} #1    end sub OnBold
[download]

and the entire program (tested):

Read more... (4 kB)

Stefan, hdb and James: the object pointers were fine originally (as you can see).

My next problem: how do you set/change size and font of ListCtrl column headers. (As usual, no documentation). I'll start a new post for that: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1025489

Many thanks to all the responders, who spent time on this thread. - Helen

(As usual, no documentation)

Can you please tell me what you mean by this?