This section provides an overview of how QuickDraw and the Font Manager interact to provide the font that you specify in the graphics port to be used to render the text. The Font Manager keeps track of detailed font information, such as the glyphs' character codes, whether fonts are fixed-width or proportional, and which fonts are related to each other by name. When you make a call to QuickDraw to measure or draw text, QuickDraw passes the font request, including the font's size and style that you have set in the current graphics port, to the Font Manager, and the Font Manager satisfies the request as best as possible, returning to QuickDraw a bitmap of the glyph of the font, along with some information that QuickDraw uses for stylistic variation and layout. When QuickDraw receives the bitmap, it transfers the bitmap to the screen. If necessary, QuickDraw first scales the bitmap, or applies stylistic variation to it if the requested style was not intrinsic to the font.
Outline fonts consist of outline glyphs in a particular typeface and style with no size restriction.
The Font Manager can generate thousands of point sizes from the same TrueType outline font. When multiple fonts of the same typeface are present in system software, the Font Manager groups them into font families. Each font in a font family can be bitmapped or outline. Bitmapped fonts in the same family can be different styles or sizes. A font has a name and a font family ID number.