Good PHP Library To Add Text To Images (jpg, png, etc) - php

Question

I was recently hired by a school that provides distance (online) education to young children. They want to be able to generate and send certificates (jpg or png images) via email once a child has completed certain tests, assignments, etc. Obviously they won't get all of their teachers to re-create each certificate in Photoshop or something and change each childs name, etc; that would be way too time consuming and I doubt their teachers even know how to use Photoshop.
Therefore, I was wondering what the best way to add text to an image in PHP is. The certificate will be like a standard school certificate and the name line will be blank. I'd like the text to go there.
The reason I'm doing this in PHP is because that way the teachers can go to whatever.com/generate-certificate and then type in the child's name in a field and then the certificate will be generated and sent off to the student via email on the fly. Very easy for the teachers.
Hopefully this question made sense. So in a nutshell I just want a library or some other simple way in PHP to add a line of text to an image (probably a jpeg).
Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

If you don't like procedural type, you can use imagick
<?php
/* Create some objects */
$image = new Imagick();
$draw = new ImagickDraw();
$pixel = new ImagickPixel( 'gray' );
/* New image */
$image->newImage(800, 75, $pixel);
/* Black text */
$draw->setFillColor('black');
/* Font properties */
$draw->setFont('Bookman-DemiItalic');
$draw->setFontSize( 30 );
/* Create text */
$image->annotateImage($draw, 10, 45, 0, 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog');
/* Give image a format */
$image->setImageFormat('png');
/* Output the image with headers */
header('Content-type: image/png');
echo $image;
Source: http://php.net/manual/en/imagick.annotateimage.php

Answer 2

There is great default library called GD which should do the job.
Well my idea how to make what you need:
1. Create maybe several background images for your certifications.
2. Load the image with PHP GD library
3. Write text and save the file, or render it on the fly if there will be less traffic.
http://us1.php.net/manual/en/function.imagefttext.php
<?php
// Create a 300x100 image
$im = imagecreatetruecolor(300, 100);
$red = imagecolorallocate($im, 0xFF, 0x00, 0x00);
$black = imagecolorallocate($im, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00);
// Make the background red
imagefilledrectangle($im, 0, 0, 299, 99, $red);
// Path to our ttf font file
$font_file = './arial.ttf';
// Draw the text 'PHP Manual' using font size 13
imagefttext($im, 13, 0, 105, 55, $black, $font_file, 'PHP Manual');
// Output image to the browser
header('Content-Type: image/png');
imagepng($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>