# FreeType Glyph Conventions

This document presents the core conventions used within the FreeType library to manage font and glyph data. It is a must-read for all developers who need to understand digital typography, especially if you want to use the FreeType 2 library in your projects.

### I. Basic Typographic Concepts

- 1. Font files, format and information
- 2. Character images and mappings
- 3. Character and font metrics

### II. Glyph Outlines

- 1. Pixels, points and device resolutions
- 2. Vectorial representation
- 3. Hinting and bitmap rendering

### III. Glyph Metrics

- 1. Baseline, pens and layouts
- 2. Typographic metrics and bounding boxes
- 3. Bearings and advances
- 4. The effects of grid-fitting
- 5. Text widths and bounding box

### IV. Kerning

- 1. Kerning pairs
- 2. Applying kerning

### V. Text Processing

- 1. Writing simple text strings
- 2. Sub-pixel positioning
- 3. Simple kerning
- 4. Right-to-left layouts
- 5. Vertical layouts

### VI. FreeType Outlines

- 1. FreeType outline description and structure
- 2. Bounding and control box computations
- 3. Coordinates, scaling, and grid-fitting

### VII. FreeType Bitmaps

- 1. Vectorial versus pixel coordinates
- 2. The `FT_Bitmap` descriptor
- 3. Converting outlines into bitmaps and pixmaps

Last update: 07-Dec-2014