Overview
In the Win32 platforms, selecting a keyboard layout decides an Input Language. Similarly, selecting a font of specific character set decides an Output Language.
Different from OS/2 fonts, every Windows font has specific character set id in the font metrics. Because the id identifies an output language, selecting a font changes not only the visual representation of text, but it also affects directly to the ways of system internal text processing, such as the parsing method to extract code points from text and the mapping to translate the code points to glyphs in that font. Along with this, the font also indicates in which writing system it is expected to b e used. Finding a right font in each situation is one of the most essential operations for Win32 NLS applications.
This chapter describes the Open32 functionality enhancements to help NLS applications on finding a right font and operating with it.