Patent ID: 7408556

Claim:
A computer system for presenting characters at a first output device that are supported by font information within a device driver of a second output device even though the first output device does not have access to a device driver for the second output device, the system comprising: one or more processors; system memory; executable software code for editing characters corresponding to code points; a composite font file operably coupled to the executable software code, the composite font file containing both device-dependent font information and device-independent font information together within the composite font file, the combination of the device-dependent font information and the device-independent font information within the composite font file defining a font family for the first device, the device-dependent font information of the font family dictating metrics for code points that are supported by font information resident in the device driver, the device-independent font information of the font family dictating metrics for code points that are not supported by the font information in the device driver; a glyph generator operably coupled to the executable software code-configured to: receive code points from the executable software code; refer to the composite font file that contains both device-dependent font information and device-independent font information to obtain glyphs for display at the first output device, including: referring to the device-dependent font information within the composite font file to obtain glyphs for code points supported by font information in the device driver; referring to the device-independent font information within the composite font file to obtain single glyphs that match code points not supported by font information in the device driver and without reference to the device-dependent font information; and send the obtained glyphs to the first output device; and wherein the first output device is configured to receive and present the obtained glyphs, presenting glyphs including: presenting glyphs for code points that are supported by font information within the device driver, even though the computer system does not have access to the device driver; and presenting glyphs for code points that are not supported by font information within the device driver and are thus not otherwise presentable at the second output device.