A character is an individual, fundamental unit of written language, such as a single letter, numeral, or piece of punctuation. While closely intertwined with the concept of a glyph, the two terms represent different stages of type.
A font relies on an internal Unicode character map to bridge these two concepts, linking abstract character identification codes to instructions on how to visually render them using default graphics. Although people often swap the terms during casual conversation, they are structurally distinct: a solitary character can be expressed through several different glyphs, such as stylistic alternates, while a solitary glyph can combine and represent multiple characters simultaneously, as seen in ligatures.
Ultimately, even in basic situations where one character corresponds to exactly one visual mark, the character remains the theoretical, abstract concept of the letter, whereas the glyph is the actual graphic used to display it on screen or paper.
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