This is a duplicate of bug #64823.

I had same problem
PHP Warning:  imagettftext(): Could not find/open font in C:...
Script has not changed since Nov 2016
Font is in same folder as script

Reverted to 7.1.11 and all is working again.

Obviously, this is not a duplicate, since the error message is
different. And indeed, I can reproduce the broken behavior with
PHP 7.1.12 (nts), but not with PHP 7.1.11 (nts).

Well, the most trivial reproduce script:

  <?php
  var_dump((bool) imagettfbbox(12, 0, 'arial', 'foo'));

This is supposed to print

  bool(true)

but may print

  bool(false)

I have not been able to reproduce bool(false) with a self-built
PHP, and debugging with the official php-7.1.12-nts-Win32-VC14-x64
shows erratic behavior, so I'm at a loss.

I was checking this and 7.1.12 NTS reproduces it with Christoph's code. However the current 7.1 tree doesn't reproduce it - same freetype version. Something must have changed. Could one please test a latest snapshot?

Thanks.

> Could one please test a latest snapshot?

I just tested with php-7.1-nts-windows-vc14-x64-r37e1d7c and
php-7.1-ts-windows-vc14-x64-r37e1d7c (renamed php.ini-development
to php.ini; uncommented extension_dir and extension=php_gd2.dll).
The imagettfbbox() call fails in both cases.  However, the ZTS
version warns "Invalid font filename", and the NTS version "Could
not find/open font".  The ZTS failure is obviously caused by a
failing open_basedir check[1] (even though open_basedir is empty);
the NTS failure, however, by fontFetch() failing[2] (which is not
a libfreetype issue).

Using the absolute path (C:/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttf) instead lets
the script succeed (both ZTS and NTS).

Anyhow, the ZTS failure has already been filed as
<https://bugs.php.net/64823>, so we should concentrate on the NTS
issue here (even though the OP mentions it happened on TS).

[1] <https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/PHP-7.1.16/ext/gd/gd.c#L3917>
[2] <https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/PHP-7.1.16/ext/gd/libgd/gdft.c#L454>

Hello,

I expierenced today the same Problem.
I wanted to upgrade from PHP 7.1.11 to 7.2.8.
After I detected the same Problem as the OP I tested until i found a Version that worked.
It was Version 7.1.11 ...

Only to make it clear: It is the compiled TS-Version I used from windows.php.net

I'm using a Windows Server 2k12R2 and Apache 2.4.33 as Webserver.

Is there any timeline when this bug will be fixed?

I also experienced this problem when I changed to PHP 7.2.8 from PHP 5.6.

Using a visforms component for joomla.
"imagettftext(): Could not find/open font in D:\home\site\wwwroot\components\com_visforms\captcha\securimage.php on line 1211"

Modifying secure.php and calling the ttf file with realpath() also solved the problem for me

(My english is not well)

I have expierenced this issue today, and I found a workaround.

Description:
------------

My OS is Windows 10 *Chinese Traditional* and Web Server is IIS, when I changed PHP version from v7.0.29 to v7.1.23, I got this warning:

    Warning: imageftbbox(): Could not find/open font in D:\projects\中文路徑\vendor\dapphp\securimage\securimage.php on line 1952

If I switch back to PHP v7.0, no error happened.

My font real path ($ttfpath) is 'D:\projects\中文路徑\vendor\dapphp\securimage\AHGBold.ttf'.

I tried 'realpath($ttfpath)' but not working, finally I found a key point 'character encoding'.
So, I tried:

    $ttfpath = 'D:\projects\中文路徑\vendor\dapphp\securimage\AHGBold.ttf';
    $ttfpath = mb_convert_encoding($ttfpath, 'big5', 'utf-8');

It is working, no error happened.


Conclusion:
------------

If:
	'OS is Windows' && 'PHP 7.1+' && 'filepath contain non ASCII characters'
	
Try:
	convert filepath string encoding before you pass to GD imageftbbox() and imagettftext().
	
	
Note:
	Maybe GD Library called a Windows File system API but that don't accept UTF8 encoding?

I think there are different issues mixed in this ticket.

A general issue regarding ZTS builds has been fixed in the master
branch[1] (is supposed to be available as of PHP 8.5.0).  This
still will likely not work for relative font paths, so always pass
an absolute path for ZTS builds.

The issue with Chinese paths is likely related to the UTF-8/Long
path support of PHP[2].  PHP handles UTF-8 paths fine, but GD
might not.  This is nothing that can be fixed in PHP, but would
need a fix in libgd.  The work-around to convert the character
encoding from UTF-8 to whatever your filesystem expects seems a
viable solution for userland, though.

As for the rest, I'm not sure whether all issues have been fixed,
but I can no longer reproduce the lookup of "arial" failing.

If someone still experiences this issue, please provide a detailed
report (especially the exact $font_filename you're passing to
imageftext() and friends) at <https://github.com/php/php-src/issues>.

[1] <https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/17366>
[2] <https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration71.windows-support.php#migration71.windows-support.long-and-utf8-path>