I've run into another need for this API. Sometimes, for performance reasons, we want to render content into a temporary surface and then composite that surface with arbitrary transforms. In such situations we mustn't render with subpixel antialiasing, obviously. The current cairo API doesn't give us a reasonable way to disable it --- see the second paragraph of my original message. Thanks, Rob -- "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." [Acts 17:11]