Patent ID: 7136067

Claim:
In a computing system that has access to one or more fonts, each font including glyphs representing the corresponding characters of the font, a method for using externally parameterizeable constraints to synthesize a font variant, the method comprising: accessing a font file comprising a plurality of glyphs and standard instructions for constraining each of the plurality of glyphs, each of the plurality of glyphs storing glyph features; utilizing the font file in accessing a scaled font that has been scaled for rendering at a target size and a target resolution, the scaled font referencing hints that constrain how glyphs of the scaled font are to be rendered at the target size and target resolution, wherein the font file is fully internally constrained and includes hints sufficient to synthesize and render the scaled font; receiving a request for a font variant of the scaled font which corresponds to the accessed font file; determining by the computing system that the requested font variant is inaccessible; accessing one or more external font parameters that alter how the glyphs of the scaled font are to be rendered; applying the one or more external font parameters to the scaled font to synthesize the font variant such that the hints from the scaled font are preserved in the font variant; and render glyphs of the font valiant that comply with the one or more external font parameters and the preserved hints on a display device.