Algorithm for estimating text width based on contents

Question

This is a long shot, but does anyone know of an algorithm for estimating and categorising text width (for a variable width font) based on its contents?

For example, I\'d

Answer 1

This worked for me:

AffineTransform af = new AffineTransform();     
FontRenderContext fr = new FontRenderContext(af,true,true);     
Font f = new Font("Arial", 0, 10); // use exact font
double width= f.getStringBounds("my string", fr).getWidth();