Set the size of an image based upon the rendered size of a string?

Questions
1

I am creating some labels for photographs. The labels will appear in the bottom left of each picture. I want the text to be rendered in a light grey rectangle, and I want the rectangle to be just large enough to contain the text.

Graphics[Style[Text["Label 1"], FontSize -> 16, FontColor -> Black]]

The above code produces the label correctly, but places it in a {360, 360} square, even though the text is only about 100px long, and about 30px high. I would like to create a graphic object that is proportional to the size of the text. Is there a way to do this?

2

With[{text = Style[Text[“Label 1”],
FontSize → 16, FontColor → Black, Background → LightGray]},
Graphics[text, ImageSize → ImageDimensions[Rasterize@text]]
]

3

Brilliant! That’s exactly what I need, and I have learned a new function.

Thanks very much for your help.

4

This will fail in more places than it works, since ImageSize is not in pixels. Instead, use Rasterize[text, “BoundingBox”] and the result can be used in generating the ImageSize specification.

5

@Ian, thanks for the additional info. I hadn’t looked into Rasterize at all. It is clearly very powerful.