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?