Accommodating Very Large Fonts on Memory-Constrained Electronic Devices

An electronic device, comprising:

• a user interface having a display and an input device;
• and
• a processor coupled to the user interface and to memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute program instructions stored in the memory to render fonts from sets of font bitmaps stored in the memory, wherein the program instructions are configured to:
• receive parameters that specify a font size and style to use for displaying text on the display;
• receive a command to display a string of text, wherein the command includes a string of character numbers;
• and
• select, for each character number in the string of character numbers, a font bitmap corresponding to the character number, wherein when the character number is within a first set of values, a font bitmap is selected from the first set of font bitmaps according to the specified size and style parameters;
• and wherein when the character number is within a second set of values, the font parameters are ignored and a font bitmap is selected from the second set of font bitmaps.

A computer readable medium comprising instructions executable by a processor in a device to perform a method comprising:

• receiving parameters that specify a font size and style to use for displaying text;
• receiving a command to display a string of text, wherein the command includes a string of character numbers;
• and
• selecting, for each character number in the string of character numbers, a font bitmap corresponding to the character number, wherein when the character number is within a first set of values, a font bitmap is selected from a first set of font bitmaps according to the specified size and style parameters;
• and wherein when the character number is within a second set of values, the font parameters are ignored and a font bitmap is selected from a second set of font bitmaps.