How to start using Pango?

[Jürgen Herz <juergen jherz redirectme net>]

Hello,

I'm trying to do some text layout (not using higher level stuff like
gtk) and looked into Freetype which works but requires you to handle
more sophisticated stuff (OpenType GPOS/GSUB) yourself.

I'd like to evaluate Pango for that but am stuck before writing the
first line of code - I can't simply find how to begin.

In the Reference Manual I found rendering and manipulating functions as
much as you want. But I'm still missing a way to choose or load a font
(i.e. creating a PangoFont structure) or fill basic structures like
PangoGlyphString.

I'd appreciate some pointers or a short howto.

Regards,
Jürgen