Monogame - SpriteFont Exception: Text contains characters that cannot be resolved by this SpriteFont

Question

I'm trying to put text on the screen and if I put anything but an empty string I get "Text contains characters that cannot be resolved by this SpriteFont.\nParameter name: text"

_spriteBatch.DrawString(screenText, "A", new Vector2(0, 200), Color.Black);

screenText is the name of my SpriteFont variable.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
This file contains an xml description of a font, and will be read by the XNA
Framework Content Pipeline. Follow the comments to customize the appearance
of the font in your game, and to change the characters which are available to draw
with.
-->
<XnaContent xmlns:Graphics="Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline.Graphics">
  <Asset Type="Graphics:LocalizedFontDescription">

    <!--
    Modify this string to change the font that will be imported.
    -->
    <FontName>Arial</FontName>

    <!--
    Size is a float value, measured in points. Modify this value to change
    the size of the font.
    -->
    <Size>6</Size>

    <!--
    Spacing is a float value, measured in pixels. Modify this value to change
    the amount of spacing in between characters.
    -->
    <Spacing>0</Spacing>

    <!--
    UseKerning controls the layout of the font. If this value is true, kerning information
    will be used when placing characters.
    -->
    <UseKerning>true</UseKerning>

    <!--
    Style controls the style of the font. Valid entries are "Regular", "Bold", "Italic",
    and "Bold, Italic", and are case sensitive.
    -->
    <Style>Regular</Style>

    <!--
    If you uncomment this line, the default character will be substituted if you draw
    or measure text that contains characters which were not included in the font.
    -->
    <!-- <DefaultCharacter>*</DefaultCharacter> -->

    <!--
    CharacterRegions control what letters are available in the font. Every
    character from Start to End will be built and made available for drawing. The
    default range is from 32, (ASCII space), to 126, ('~'), covering the basic Latin
    character set. The characters are ordered according to the Unicode standard.
    See the documentation for more information.
    For localized fonts you can leave this empty as the character range will be picked up
    from the Resource Files.
    -->
    <CharacterRegions>
      <CharacterRegion>
        <Start>&#32;</Start>
        <End>&#32;</End>
      </CharacterRegion>
    </CharacterRegions>
    <!--
    ResourceFiles control the charaters which will be in the font. It does this
    by scanning the text in each of the resource files and adding those specific
    characters to the font. 
    -->
    <ResourceFiles>
        <!-- <Resx>Strings.resx</Resx> -->
    </ResourceFiles>
  </Asset>
</XnaContent>

I did build and rebuild the spritefont file using the Content Builder.

Answer 1

The problem lies in your .spritefont file.

-->
<CharacterRegions>
  <CharacterRegion>
    <Start>&#32;</Start>
    <End>&#32;</End>
  </CharacterRegion>
</CharacterRegions>
<!--

The region starts with character #32 (Space) and ends with character #32. Change the value to #126. This gives you the normal range of characters. Just rebuild your Content with the new value and all will be well. Good luck, Stoort

Answer 2

Adding my experience here as this was one of the first Google hits.

You could consider making sure you don't get this exception in any case, by defining a default character to be replaced for any character missing from the font.

You can put something like this in your spritefont file:

<DefaultCharacter>*</DefaultCharacter>

Or you can do font.DefaultCharacter = '*' after loading the font.

References: community thread, API documentation.