PV‑WAVE can produce text output using either software or hardware fonts. Software fonts, sometimes called vector-drawn fonts or Hershey fonts, are internal to PV‑WAVE and are drawn with line vectors. Hardware fonts are built into specific output devices, such as PostScript printers and window systems. PV‑WAVE simply sends the characters to the graphics device, which displays them using these built-in fonts.

This chapter discusses how to work with both software and hardware fonts.