A character is an abstract element of text. A character is different from a glyph, which is a specific representation of a character. For example, the first character of the English upper-case alphabet can be displayed as A, A, A, and so on. These forms are different glyphs that represent the same character. A character, a character code, and a glyph are related as follows: character --(encoding)--> character code --(font)--> glyph You must choose a font to display or print the character. The available fonts depend on which encoding scheme is being used. The character can be printed or displayed as A, A, or A, for example. The forms are different glyphs that represent the same character.