---
title: "layoutManager(_:shouldGenerateGlyphs:properties:characterIndexes:font:forGlyphRange:)"
framework: appkit
role: symbol
role_heading: Instance Method
path: "appkit/nslayoutmanagerdelegate/layoutmanager(_:shouldgenerateglyphs:properties:characterindexes:font:forglyphrange:)"
---

# layoutManager(_:shouldGenerateGlyphs:properties:characterIndexes:font:forGlyphRange:)

Enables customization of the initial glyph generation process.

## Declaration

```swift
optional func layoutManager(_ layoutManager: NSLayoutManager, shouldGenerateGlyphs glyphs: UnsafePointer<CGGlyph>, properties props: UnsafePointer<NSLayoutManager.GlyphProperty>, characterIndexes charIndexes: UnsafePointer<Int>, font aFont: NSFont, forGlyphRange glyphRange: NSRange) -> Int
```

## Parameters

- `layoutManager`: The layout manager doing the layout.
- `glyphs`: A pointer to the layout manager’s glyph cache.
- `props`: A pointer to a buffer containing glyph properties for the glyphs in the cache.
- `charIndexes`: A pointer to the starting index for the characters in the text storage for which glyphs are generated.
- `aFont`: A font to override the font attributes in the text storage for the specified character range.
- `glyphRange`: The range of glyphs in the glyph cache to set.

## Return Value

Return Value The actual glyph range stored in this method. By returning 0, it can indicate for the layout manager to do the default processing.

## Discussion

Discussion This message is sent whenever the layout manager is about to store the initial glyph information via setGlyphs(_:properties:characterIndexes:font:forGlyphRange:). To customize the initial glyph generation process, this method can invoke setGlyphs(_:properties:characterIndexes:font:forGlyphRange:) with modified glyph information. note: Querying glyph information surrounding glyphRange could lead to recursion since the data might not be available yet.

## See Also

### Invalidating glyphs and layout

- [layoutManagerDidInvalidateLayout(_:)](appkit/nslayoutmanagerdelegate/layoutmanagerdidinvalidatelayout(_:).md)
- [layoutManager(_:shouldUse:forControlCharacterAt:)](appkit/nslayoutmanagerdelegate/layoutmanager(_:shoulduse:forcontrolcharacterat:).md)
- [NSLayoutManager.ControlCharacterAction](appkit/nslayoutmanager/controlcharacteraction.md)