Abstract: One embodiment of the invention provide for access and use of information from fonts in multiple formats (including font format specific information) in an object oriented system. A generic private Font Handler abstract class is defined with multiple methods and references to objects and variables to provide for the storage and retrieval of information. Subclasses of the Font Handler class implement the abstract methods and provide for retrieval of this information. Further, each Font Handler subclass and instances thereof implement a specific interface that provides format specific capabilities. Font information is stored in instances of the Font Handler. A Font class is defined that provides application developers the ability to access the information from the Font Handler. When an application developer desires to use a particular font, the developer creates an instance of the Font class and establishes an association with a corresponding Font Handler instance.