Text related objects can be handled with the font option . A is represented as a two or three tuple:

Examples of fonts are: , , , .

The most important requirement with the font model is to ensure that there is always a "best possible" font present. For example, if an application tries to use the font on a computer system which does not have this font available, the font model automatically substitutes .

Note that GS requires that the following fonts are available if using an X-server display:

To find out which font is actually chosen by the , use the option . For example, the following situation might occur:

 G=gs:start().
{1,<0.20.0>}
2>gs:read(G,{choose_font,{times,38}}).
{times,[],38}
3> gs:read(G,{choose_font,{screen,italic,6}}). 
{courier,italic,6}
4> 
    ]]>

When programming with fonts, it is often necessary to find the size of a string which uses a specific font. returns the width and height of any string and any font. The following example illustrates its usage: