Abstract: A method of displaying characters on a pixel oriented grayscale display device having a predetermined pixel resolution employing parametric, geometric glyph descriptors is disclosed. The process supports a client process that passes a request for a particular font and a physical character height for the displayed characters as well as the physical resolution expressed in pixels for unit length. A character space height value in pixels is determined and compared to selected values to determine whether the character space height in physical pixels falls into one of three distinct ranges. If within the smallest range, no hinting or grid fitting is performed and the physical pixel coordinates of a scaled glyph descriptor are scan converted using subpixel coordinates. The on subpixels within each pixel are counted to provide a grayscale value for illuminating that particular pixel.