If the curves of a character are generated at very low resolution then the approximation to the curve may look very rough. In some cases ‘hints’ are stored with the font to tell the font what alterations should be made to allow for very low resolutions.

The font may also contain ‘kerning’ information. This allows the space between character to vary. For example, if the letter a followed a capital T, the letter a might be moved under the cross of the letter T.

A font may also have enough information to allow it to run together letters such as the letter a followed by the letter e, or an f followed by an i. These are known as 'ligatures'.

While these features are vital for professional typesetting, the set of requirements for an embedded system is often simpler.