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Technical Q&As
Text manipulation consists of creating, managing, storing, and searching for text strings. Mac OS X programming interfaces provide capabilities that range from basic text input and display to sophisticated text encoding conversions, text-search capabilities, and document summarizations. To control how text is laid out and rendered in the written representation of languages, Mac OS X programming interfaces also enable sophisticated typography. For example, applications can precisely position individual glyphs and lines of text, draw Unicode text at any angle of rotation, kern text, and activate and deactivate fonts.
Text & Fonts Resources
A guided introduction and learning path for developers new to Mac OS X text and fonts.  
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Changing Size of sfnt Cache (HTML) ()
TX11: Describes how to change the size of the sfnt fragment cache.
 Typography 1998-04-12
Converting to Precomposed Unicode (HTML) ()
QA1235: Describes how to convert a string to precomposed Unicode.
 Text Manipulation 2003-02-07
Creating Double-byte Bitmap Fonts (HTML) ()
TX10: Some information about converting to the 'NFNT' and 'sbit' font formats.
 Typography 1998-02-10
dlsDelta field in PRAM's time zone MachineLocation record (HTML) ()
OPS21: Explains how to access and preserve the Daylight Savings state when changing the GMT.
 Carbon 2001-03-26
grayishTextOr and Mac OS 8.5 (HTML) ()
Deprecated - QD59: Explains why text drawn using TextMode(grayishTextOr) is never drawn; provides a workaround.
 Carbon 1998-12-07
Improving ATSUI Text Drawing Performance (HTML)
QA1027: Talks about one way of improving ATSUI text drawing performance.
 Carbon, Typography 2001-04-17
IsCmdChar (HTML) ()
TX12: Describes the routine IsCmdChar, which is useful when testing for Command-period and command-AnyCharacter.
 Text Manipulation 1998-07-06
Locating a Font's Home File (HTML) ()
Deprecated - TB18: Lists the steps necessary to find the home file of a given font.
 Carbon 1996-02-15
QDFlushPortBuffer (HTML) ()
QD65: Describes a possible solution for window update problems under Carbon.
 Carbon 2000-11-08
SetFontInfoForSelection incorrect prototype (HTML)
QA1375: Describes the incorrect prototyping of the SetFontInfoForSelection API and gives a workaround.
 Carbon 2004-10-04
Sorting Like the Finder (HTML)
QA1159: Shows how to sort strings like the Finder's list view.
 Text Manipulation 2004-10-27
Translating Postscript font file names (HTML) ()
TX09: Describes how to translate a font name to a Postscript font file name.
 Typography 1997-11-17