<?php
// The lines below prevent the file from being cached (i.e. it is reloaded upon each view) and are currently commented - should only be uncommented if you are outputting dynamic information which will be regularly updated, and also if you don't mind using a lot of bandwidth on your host. You can use MySQL or an RSS grabber etc to output stuff dynamically.
#header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT");
#header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");
#header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
#header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false);
#header("Cache-Control: max-age=0");
#header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Content-type: image/x-png"); // can use 'Content-type: image/jpeg/gif/x-png' instead (change output at end also)

// Load image template
$im = imagecreatefrompng("background.png"); // location of the background image (should also be imagecreatefromjpeg/gif if the file type is not png)
$textcolour = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255); // colour of the text you're adding in an RGB value
$textshadow = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 0); // colour of the shadow on your text (if any) in an RGB value

// The following function gives text center alignment
function centerText($size, $angle, $font, $text, $centerPt){
   $bbox = imagettfbbox($size, $angle, $font, $text);
   $width = $bbox[2] - $bbox[0];
   $halfPt = $width / 2;
   $newX = $centerPt - $halfPt;
   return $newX;
}

// imagettftext ($im, font size, angle, location x-coord, location y-coord, font colour using imagecolorallocate() function, font file location, text);
// the centerText() function is a bit confusing to grasp but it goes in the x-coord parameter and you basically enter the same parameters into it as you did for the rest of the imagettftext() function. Read its parameters above to see what to enter.
// First apply a shadow (1px off the actual text), then actual text afterwards
$text = "This is the string of text you want to output";
imagettftext ($im, 20, 0, centerText(20, 0, './verdana.ttf', $text, 85) + 1, 87, $textshadow, "./verdana.ttf", $text);
imagettftext ($im, 20, 0, centerText(20, 0, './verdana.ttf', $text, 85), 86, $textcolour, "./verdana.ttf", $text);

// Throwing out the final image
imagepng($im);
// or
// imagepng($im);
// or
// imagejpeg($im,'',100);
// (change content-type in header also as necessary)

// Free the memory
imagedestroy($im);
?>