Text rendering libraries

Microsoft Windows component responsible for representing objects as output devices such as monitors and printers

Pango (stylized as Παν語) is a text (i.e. glyph) layout engine library which works with the HarfBuzz shaping engine for displaying multi-language text.

FreeType is a software development library used to render text onto bitmaps, and which provides support for other font-related operations. The FreeType font rasterization engine is free and open-source software with the source code dual-licensed under a BSD-like license and the GPL. FreeType supports a number of font formats, including TrueType, Type 1, and OpenType.

thumb|1 and 2 depict standard renderings of a ClearType and purely Spatial anti-aliasing|anti-aliased line, respectively, while 3 and 4 are the same lines enlarged. 5 shows how the ClearType line is rendered on a subpixel level.

HarfBuzz (loose transliteration of Persian calque harf-bāz, literally "open type") is an open-source text shaping engine written in C++. Text shaping is the process of converting a sequence of Unicode code points into the correct glyph identifiers and precise positions needed to render text on screen or in print. For scripts where characters change shape depending on their neighbours (such as Arabic, Devanagari, or Tamil), text shaping ensures that the right glyph forms are selected and joined correctly. Without it, text renderers would display raw disconnected code points rather than readable

programmable Unicode-compliant smart-font technology and rendering system developed by SIL International as free software

DirectWrite is a text layout and glyph rendering API by Microsoft. It was designed to replace GDI/GDI+ and Uniscribe for screen-oriented rendering and was first shipped with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (with Platform Update installed). DirectWrite is hardware-accelerated (using the GPU) when running on top of Direct2D, but can also use the CPU to render on any target, including a GDI bitmap.

Uniscribe is the Microsoft Windows set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text, supporting complex text layout. It is implemented in the dynamic link library . Uniscribe was released with Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.0. In addition, the Windows CE platform has supported Uniscribe since version 5.0.