Abstract: A method of enabling a computer user to manipulate, as one font, an arbitrary number of special characters exceeding the 256 characters which single byte font schemes can represent in one font. The invention takes advantage of the user-activatable font management capabilities built into popular application programs, such as a mechanism for switching between different standard character fonts; and, a font display mechanism for enabling the user to monitor the font switching procedure. The special characters are divided into font segments, with each segment containing a number "X" (less than 256) characters. The segments are stored for subsequent retrieval. Each character input by the user is scanned to determine whether it is one of the special characters. Non-special characters are passed without further action. If a special character is detected, the stored font segment containing that character is identified to see if it is the font currently in use by the program.