1. get latest GD
2. Make sure TT Font support is compiled into libgd.
3. use GD::Image->stringTTF(....) method
4. perldoc GD, docs are nice, docs are good go to the docs

mitd-Made in the Dark
'My favourite colour appears to be grey.'

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
# just about all pulled directly from the POD
# My problem was ttf support in libgd!!!
# Yeah, I know - RTFM!!!!

# Simple image creation script - hopefully

use GD;
use CGI qw(:standard);

# create a new image
$im = new GD::Image(400, 200);
$query = new CGI;

# allocate some colors
$white = $im->colorAllocate(255,255,255);
$black = $im->colorAllocate(0,0,0);
$red = $im->colorAllocate(255,0,0);
$blue = $im->colorAllocate(0,0,255);

# make the background transparent and interlaced
$im->transparent($white);
$im->interlaced('true');

# Put a black frame around the picture
$im->rectangle(0,0,399,199, $black);

# Let's try a character and or string
$im->string(gdSmallFont, 150, 100, "Text Test", $blue);

$im->stringTTF($black,"/home/httpd/html/ribbon.ttf", 12, 0, 180, 120, 
+"Testing the ribbon font");
if ($@) {
    $im->string(gdSmallFont, 50, 150, "$@", $black);
}

#make sure we are writing to a binary stream
binmode STDOUT;
print $query->header(-type=>'image/png');

# print the image
print $im->png;
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