The Pango backends written for Win32 is pangowin32. Pangowin32 uses
the Win32 GDI font API. GTK+ 2.8 and later on Win32 however actually
uses the pangocairo backend (which then uses only small parts of
pangowin32). Much of the GDI font API calls are in cairo.

The pangoft2 backend was originally written with Win32 in mind, but
its main use nowadays is on other platforms than Win32.

To build Pango for Win32:

You need to have gcc (mingw-w64) or Visual Studio 2015 or later, along with
Python 3.6.x+ and Meson 0.55.3 at the time of writing.  If building
the introspection files, you will also need to ensure that the Python
release series and build architecture (i.e. Win32 (x86)/
x64 (amd64/x86-64) matches the Python release series and build
architecture that was used to build GObject-Introspection.
The Python interpreter executable directory must be in your PATH.
The Ninja build utility must also be in your PATH, unless using the
Visual Studio IDE as noted below.  Cross-compiling Pango for ARM64/aarch64
with Visual Studio 2017 or later is also supported, provided if a cross
compilation file for Meson is properly setup for such builds (please refer
to the Meson documentation for further instructions).  Support for
introspection for ARM64 builds is currently not supported, due to the lack
of an official build of Python for ARM64 Windows, and introspection builds
are currently not supported for any cross-builds.

You will also need the following libraries installed with their headers
and import libraries, and their DLLs, if applicable, needs to be found in
%PATH%.  All of their required dependencies are required as well.  Their
pkg-config files are needed on all builds unless marked with a *, where
only their headers/import libraries are needed on Visual Studio:

-GLib
-Fribidi
-Cairo* (With Win32 support built in, and optionally FreeType and FontConfig
         support for building PangoFT2.)
-HarfBuzz* (GLib support required, and FreeType2 if building PangoFT2)
-FreeType* (Optional, needed for PangoFT2)
-FontConfig* (Optional, needed for PangoFT2)

Please see meson.build to see what versions are needed for these dependencies.

Follow the following steps to build Pango:

1) Invoke the Meson configuration as follows, in a directory separate from the sources:

(With MinGW, please adjust the paths accordingly, in a MSYS/MSYS2 bash prompt)
PATH=/devel/dist/glib-2.8.0/bin:$PATH ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I /devel/dist/glib-2.8.0/share/aclocal" PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/devel/dist/glib-2.8.0/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH CC='gcc -mtune=pentium3' CPPFLAGS='-I/opt/gnu/include' LDFLAGS='-L/opt/gnu/lib' CFLAGS=-O meson $(PATH_TO_SRC) --buildtype=$(buildtype) --prefix=$(PREFIX)

(With Visual Studio, set the INCLUDE, LIB, PATH and envvars as
needed before running the following in a Visual Studio command prompt)
meson $(PATH_TO_SRC) --buildtype=$(buildtype) --prefix=$(PREFIX) [--pkg-config-path=...]

For Visual Studio builds, support for building using the Visual Studio IDE
is also supported to some extent.  Append --backend=vs to the Meson
configuration command above to use this support.  Note that this support
may not work as well as the builds that are carried out by Ninja, and
issues in regards to building with Meson using Visual Studio with the IDE (i.e.
msbuild) should be reported to the Meson project.

2) Build Pango by running Ninja, or by opening and building the generated
   Visual Studio solution file.
	
3) Run tests and/or install the build using the "test" and "install" targets
   or sub-projects respectively.

See the following GNOME Live! page for a more detailed description of building
Pango's dependencies with Visual Studio:

https://live.gnome.org/GTK%2B/Win32/MSVCCompilationOfGTKStack