How can I import a font file and get the pixel information of the letters so I can make my own custom text drawing function?

I basically have a pixel surface (a 2D array) and I want to draw the text to that array.

In this case, the answer is "it depends"... Some fonts are vector fonts, and others ware bit-mapped. IE, what you want to do is trivial with bit-mapped fonts (but not necessarily pleasing to view when expanded), but not easy to do with vector fonts (they are scaled when output).

I think you need to do some research into this domain before you try to build your own font-rendering functions. It is not trivial, and there is a LOT of literature available on the subject.

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