I don't know if I understand your question. Allegro is able to render texts. Note that it renders bitmap-based fonts only (ttf fonts are converted into bitmaps on loading).
You can take a look to the MinGRo GUI system I designed (mngGUI, mngGuiCommonCtrls and mngGuiUtils; sorry for mixing English and Spanish in IMPLEMENTATION comments ). Didn't implemented any list or table widget yet but textbox and textlist are planned and I think I'll not have any problem.
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