diff --git a/docs/usermanual-getting-started.xml b/docs/usermanual-getting-started.xml
index 07593f56e..f8f525c65 100644
--- a/docs/usermanual-getting-started.xml
+++ b/docs/usermanual-getting-started.xml
@@ -18,9 +18,7 @@
       properties that affect shaping. The most important are the
       text-flow direction (e.g., left-to-right, right-to-left,
       top-to-bottom, or bottom-to-top), the script tag, and the
-      language tag. HarfBuzz can attempt to guess the correct values
-      for the buffer based on its contents if you do not set them
-      explicitly.
+      language tag.
     </para>
 
     <para>
@@ -29,7 +27,8 @@
       indicate whether or not to visibly render Unicode <literal>Default
       Ignorable</literal> codepoints, and to modify the cluster-merging
       behavior for the buffer. For shaped output buffers, the
-      individual X and Y offsets and widths of each glyph are
+      individual X and Y offsets and <literal>advances</literal>
+      (the logical dimensions) of each glyph are 
       accessible. HarfBuzz also flags glyphs as
       <literal>UNSAFE_TO_BREAK</literal> if breaking the string at
       that glyph (e.g., in a line-breaking or hyphenation process)
@@ -61,9 +60,10 @@
     </para>
     
     <para>
-      HarfBuzz provides glue code to integrate with FreeType, GObject,
-      Uniscribe, and CoreText. Support for integrating with
-      DirectWrite is experimental at present.
+      HarfBuzz provides glue code to integrate with various other
+      libraries, including FreeType, GObject, and CoreText. Support
+      for integrating with Uniscribe and DirectWrite is experimental
+      at present.
     </para>
   </section>
 
diff --git a/docs/usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml b/docs/usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml
index cd1e2e134..54b5fc954 100644
--- a/docs/usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml
+++ b/docs/usermanual-install-harfbuzz.xml
@@ -279,7 +279,11 @@
 	      graphics-rendering library. The default setting is to
 	      check for the presence of Cairo and, if it is found,
 	      build with Cairo support.
-	    </para> 
+	    </para>
+	    <para>
+	      Note: Cairo is used only by the HarfBuzz
+	      command-line utilities, and not by the HarfBuzz library.
+	    </para>
 	  </listitem>
 	</varlistentry>
 	
@@ -296,6 +300,10 @@
 	      is to check for the presence of Fontconfig and, if it is
 	      found, build with Fontconfig support.
 	    </para>
+	    <para>
+	      Note: Fontconfig is used only by the HarfBuzz
+	      command-line utilities, and not by the HarfBuzz library.
+	    </para>
 	  </listitem>
 	</varlistentry>
 	
diff --git a/docs/usermanual-what-is-harfbuzz.xml b/docs/usermanual-what-is-harfbuzz.xml
index 0c01adae2..4719dd4ff 100644
--- a/docs/usermanual-what-is-harfbuzz.xml
+++ b/docs/usermanual-what-is-harfbuzz.xml
@@ -296,10 +296,7 @@
     <para>
       In addition to OpenType shaping, HarfBuzz supports the latest
       version of Graphite shaping. HarfBuzz currently supports AAT
-      shaping only on macOS and iOS systems, and in a pass-through
-      fashion: HarfBuzz hands off AAT support to the system CoreText
-      library. However, full, built-in AAT support within HarfBuzz is
-      under development.
+      shaping only on macOS and iOS systems.
     </para>
     
     <para>
@@ -321,13 +318,9 @@
       all color-font formats (<literal>CBDT</literal>,
       <literal>sbix</literal>, <literal>COLR/CPAL</literal>, and
       <literal>SVG-OT</literal>) and OpenType variable fonts. HarfBuzz
-      also includes a font-subsetting feature.
-    </para>
-
-    <para>
-      HarfBuzz can perform some low-level math-shaping operations, 
-      although it does not currently perform full shaping for
-      mathematical typesetting.
+      also includes a font-subsetting feature. HarfBuzz can perform
+      some low-level math-shaping operations, although it does not
+      currently perform full shaping for mathematical typesetting.
     </para>
     
     <para>
@@ -355,9 +348,10 @@
         <para>
           HarfBuzz won't help you with bidirectionality. If you want to
           lay out text that includes a mix of Hebrew and English, you
-	  will need to ensure that each buffer provided to HarfBuzz has its
-          characters in the correct layout order. This will be different
-          from the logical order in which the Unicode text is stored. In
+	  will need to ensure that each buffer provided to HarfBuzz
+	  has all of its characters in the same order and that the
+	  directionality of the buffer is set correctly. This may mean
+	  segmenting the text before it is placed into HarfBuzz buffers. In
           other words, the user will hit the keys in the following
           sequence:
         </para>
@@ -374,7 +368,7 @@
           This reordering is called <emphasis>bidi processing</emphasis>
           (&quot;bidi&quot; is short for bidirectional), and there's an
           algorithm as an annex to the Unicode Standard which tells you how
-          to reorder a string from logical order into presentation order.
+          to process a string of mixed directionality.
           Before sending your string to HarfBuzz, you may need to apply the
           bidi algorithm to it. Libraries such as <ulink
 	  url="http://icu-project.org/">ICU</ulink> and <ulink
@@ -412,12 +406,7 @@
           HarfBuzz can tell you how wide a shaped piece of text is, which is
           useful input to a justification algorithm, but it knows nothing
           about paragraphs, lines or line lengths. Nor will it adjust the
-          space between words to fit them proportionally into a line. If you
-          want to layout text in paragraphs, you will probably want to send
-          each word of your text to HarfBuzz to determine its shaped width
-          after glyph substitutions, then work out how many words will fit
-          on a line, and then finally output each word of the line separated
-          by a space of the correct size to fully justify the paragraph.
+          space between words to fit them proportionally into a line.
         </para>
       </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>