A font is a set of alphanumeric characters and other symbols. Fonts may be designed interactively using the Font Editor application provided as part of the IBM Developer's Toolkit for OS/2 2.0. Once a font has been designed, the Font Editor saves the font in a disk file with an extension .FNT. This font file is referenced from the resource script file using the FONT keyword:
FONT 123 MYFONT.FNT
The integer following the FONT keyword is used to identify the font resource. A symbolic name cannot be used to define a font resource.
A font file must be link-edited along with a resource script file containing a FONT keyword referencing the .FNT file, and with the FONTS.OBJ and FONTS.DEF files provided with the OS/2 Programmer's Toolkit, to produce a file with an extension of .FON. Although a font cannot be stored in a dynamic link library, the .FON file may be installed on the system by the user or installed explicitly by an application. The font is then usable by any application in the system. Alternatively, an application developer may choose not to install the font, but merely to access it from a particular application using the GpiLoadFonts() function.