Rendering text with pango without GTK/cairo/...

["Troeger, Thomas (ext)" <thomas troeger ext siemens com>]

Hi,

I'm trying to extend an existing graphics engine with font rendering. My
initial attempt includes FreeType and it's gotten me to simple layout
working quite ok. I now have to extend the whole thing with
bidirectional text, different text style and colors and that's the point
where I'm looking into existing libraries. Since pango is widely used
and seems to render text nicely my question is:

- can this be done with pango?
- do I have to use cairo? After all I already have a graphics engine ...
- if it can be done, is there an example program that illustratesp ure
pango usage?
- how fast is pango compared to a simple freetype2 solution with a very
simple renderer?

I'd appreciate helpful comments :)

Cheers,
Thomas.