Well, this is my question:
Which is the fastest way to render fonts in OpenGL? Using glBitmap? or glWritePixels? or using textured polygons?
I think the fastest method is using textured polygons per character, because I could benefit from hardware acceleration. But what do you think? 
Most people will tell you that textured quads are the fastest way, which seems to be true according to my tests…
Nevertheless, there are cases where I use wglUseFontOutlines and build display lists to have vector fonts…
But for speed, yeah, just go with textured quads !
Regards.
Eric
The fastest way will be either indexed triangle lists or triangle strips depending on your card and drivers.