To control how text appears on the canvas, you use several key properties of the drawing context. The font property sets the font style, size, and family for all text operations. For example, assigning "20px Verdana" to ctx.font will draw text in Verdana at 20 pixels high. The textAlign property determines how text is horizontally aligned relative to the x-coordinate you provide. Its values include "left", "right", "center", "start", and "end". The textBaseline property controls the vertical positioning of the text relative to the y-coordinate, with options such as "top", "hanging", "middle", "alphabetic", "ideographic", and "bottom". By combining these properties, you can precisely position and style text on your canvas.

Sometimes you need to know how much space your text will take up before drawing it, especially when laying out multiple elements or centering text. The measureText method lets you measure the width of a specific string with the current font settings. This helps you align or wrap text accurately within your canvas area.