hi again, here's an example script.  also 2 versions of the same script.

the wrong rendering using php 4.3.9 win32:
http://www.europe-re.com/snd/incorrect.png

the correct rendering using php 4.3.9 Debian:
http://www.europe-re.com/snd/correct.png

the script:

<?php
	// ================================
	// Parameters
	// ================================

	$imgw 	= 200;
	$imgh 	= 20;
	$fcol 	= "000000";
	$bcol 	= "e0e0e0";
	$fsiz 	= 8;
	$ftxt 	= "Beware of weird foggy bibberish spam";
	$xpos	= 10;
	$ypos	= 13;
	$ftyp	= str_replace("\\", "/", getcwd()) . "/fonts/arial.ttf";		// font to use

	// ================================
	// create from scratch
	// ================================

	$imgd	= ImageCreate ($imgw, $imgh);
	$bcol 	= ImageColorAllocate ($imgd, hexdec(substr($bcol, 0, 2)), hexdec(substr($bcol, 2, 2)), hexdec(substr($bcol, 4, 2)));
	$fcol 	= ImageColorAllocate ($imgd, hexdec(substr($fcol, 0, 2)), hexdec(substr($fcol, 2, 2)), hexdec(substr($fcol, 4, 2)));

	ImageFill ($imgd, 0, 0, $bcol);
	ImageTTFText ($imgd, $fsiz, $rota, $xpos+$xoff, $ypos, $fcol, $ftyp, $ftxt);

	// ================================
	// Output het plaatje
	// ================================

	header			("Content-type: image/png");
	ImagePNG 		($imgd);
	ImageDestroy 	($imgd);
	exit();
?>

> also 2 versions of the same script.

i mean 2 rendering output images by the same script on win32 vs debian...

Please add the configure line of PHP in the debian machine.

To confuse things a bit: my provider upgraded our debian colocated server yesterday to php 4.3.10, so i give you the configure line of this version instead of 4.3.9. The situation hasn't changed though: good text rendering on the debian (both on 4.3.9 and 4.3.10) and bad rendering on 4.3.9-win32. I can't figure out why i don't get a configure line on my win32 version through phpinfo(), is this common?

Configure Command of PHP Version 4.3.10-1.dotdeb.0 (from phpinfo()):

'../configure' '--prefix=/usr' '--with-apxs=/usr/bin/apxs' '--with-regex=php' '--with-config-file-path=/etc/php4/apache' '--disable-rpath' '--enable-memory-limit' '--disable-debug' '--with-layout=GNU' '--enable-calendar' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-sysvmsg' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-bcmath' '--with-bz2' '--enable-ctype' '--with-db2' '--with-iconv' '--enable-exif' '--enable-filepro' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-dbase' '--with-gettext' '--enable-mbstring' '--with-pcre-regex' '--enable-shmop' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-wddx' '--enable-tokenizer' '--disable-xml' '--with-expat-dir=/usr' '--with-xmlrpc' '--enable-yp' '--with-zlib' '--without-pgsql' '--with-kerberos=/usr' '--with-openssl=/usr' '--enable-dbx' '--with-mime-magic' '--with-exec-dir=/usr/lib/php4/libexec' '--disable-static' '--disable-cli' '--without-pear' '--with-curl=shared,/usr' '--with-dom=shared,/usr' '--with-dom-xslt=shared,/usr' '--with-dom-exslt=shared,/usr' '--with-zlib-dir=/usr' '--with-gd=shared' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-jpeg-dir=shared,/usr' '--with-xpm-dir=shared,/usr/X11R6' '--with-png-dir=shared,/usr' '--with-freetype-dir=shared,/usr' '--with-mcrypt=shared,/usr' '--with-ming=shared,/usr' '--with-gmp=shared,/usr' '--with-imap=shared,/usr' '--with-imap-ssl' '--with-ldap=shared,/usr' '--with-mcal=shared,/usr' '--with-mhash=shared,/usr' '--with-mm' '--with-mysql=shared,/usr' '--with-mysql-sock=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--with-pgsql=shared,/usr' '--with-unixODBC=shared,/usr' '--with-recode=shared,/usr' '--enable-xslt=shared' '--with-xslt-sablot=shared,/usr' '--with-snmp=shared' '--enable-ucd-snmp-hack' '--with-sybase-ct=shared,/usr' '--with-ttf=shared,/usr' '--with-t1lib=shared,/usr'

Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php4-STABLE-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-STABLE-latest.zip

hi, i tried with the cvs version 4.3.11-dev / GD Version 2.0.28, but no change in situation: still nasty character-spacing on win32 version. 

besides using a font/point-size of 8 in ImageTTFText() like in my example, i tried other sizes to be sure it's not some kind of rounding problem, and the ugly spacing kept appearing.

Edin, please check the versions of freetype, etc. in the win32 build.

I confirm this bug :(
Problem will solve in the next win32 release?

We had some problem with the libraries that were crashing the PHP so we have upgraded all GD related libs to the latest versions. The crashes went away but some font rendereing is different and there is nothing we can do about it.

so i understand the problem lies in windows version of the GD library?