Fonts

Introduction

Fonts begin where character sets and encodings end. The characters defined by the encodings inside your computer are abstract, whereas the glyphs defined by a font are concrete visual forms that can be rendered on screen or paper.

Outline fonts are fonts in which glyphs are described mathematically as "outlines," i.e., a series of line segments, arcs, and curves. They are thus fully scalable: to print or display a character the outline is scaled to the desired size, then rendered by filling the outline with bits or pixels. The information provided here is limited to what the typical Chinese Mac user might want to know. If you want to learn more about font formats and printing technologies, Ken Lunde's CJKV Information Processing is very thorough on these topics.

Developed by Adobe, PostScript is a "page-description" language for printers. It supports both graphics and text, with built-in support for fonts. The most common PostScript font format is Type 1. Chinese Postscript fonts use the CID format, which uses Type 1 character descriptions tailored especially for East Asian writing systems. CID stands for "Character Identifier," which refers to the numbers that are used to index and access the characters in the font.

In the late 1980s, Apple and Microsoft developed two different versions of the TrueType font format. All TrueType fonts contain "cmap" tables that map the glyphs to encodings. OpenType is an open standard developed by Microsoft and Adobe in 1996 to absorb the underlying differences between the TrueType and PostScript formats. OpenType fonts also use cmap tables. There are two kinds of OpenType fonts: those that use PostScript Type 1 outlines and carry the .OTF extension, and those that use TrueType outlines and carry the .TTF or .TTC extensions.

You can learn more from:

Troubleshooting:

  • When you try to move a font from a Windows machine to Mac OS X, the system sometimes fails to recognize the file as a font. In most cases, all you need to do is change the file's Type code to "sfnt" and the Creator code to "movr". You can use Quick Change to do this.
  • Mac OS X supports the Windows TrueType format, although the fonts must contain Unicode cmap tables. Most Windows 98 and later fonts have them, while most Windows 95 and earlier fonts do not have them. If you have access to OS 9/Classic, you can use the double-byte font conversion utility TrueKeys to add Unicode support. You don't have to change the TrueType format, since TrueKeys will add the Unicode cmap regardless. To use Windows TrueType fonts in WorldScript-savvy applications, however, you must convert them to the Macintosh TrueType format.

Free Fonts

Links

Luc Devroye maintains extensive pages of links, including a page on Chinese fonts:

Wazu Japan provides links and information about other sets of Chinese Unicode fonts available online:

Mojikyo Fonts

The Mojikyo fonts are Japanese Shift-JIS-encoded fonts for the 48,902 Chinese characters in the Morohashi dictionary [大漢和辞典], along with tens of thousands of additional characters. Each character is assigned a six-digit Mojikyo number. The Morohashi characters are contained in fonts M101-109. Fonts M110 and above contain characters not in Morohashi. These include, for example, oracle-bone characters [甲骨文字, M117–118], Siddham [梵字, M119–121], and Tangut [西夏文字, M202–203].

There is a free "web" version of the fonts, available here:

http://www.mojikyo.org/html/download/

You can use the Windows fonts in OS X, though you will have to install them on a Windows machine to extract them. For OS 9 and earlier, you must use the Mac OS fonts. There are excellent HTML tables available here that will help with input and exploring the fonts after you have installed them.

Kinokuniya distributes a commercial version which adds more than 21,000 Chinese characters to the total, along with nearly 11,000 seal-script characters [篆書]. See:

http://www.mojikyo.com/info/about/index.html

Font Foundries

Major foundries include:

  • DynaComware (華康, Hong Kong). Formerly DynaLab. Maker of the "DynaFont" line.
  • Founder (方正, Beijing). Formerly Zhongyi.
  • Arphic (文鼎, Taiwan).

Another important commercial foundry is SinoType (华文) in Changzhou, Jiangsu. They do not sell fonts retail, but their "ST" fonts have been widely distributed on a variety of platforms.

The best way for individuals to buy Chinese fonts is in CD bundles. Here are two good choices in terms of quality and value [as of April 2007]:

  • DynaFont OpenType 127. $200 from PenPower. A traditional-Chinese font package with 115 Big5 fonts. Six of them have GB5 analogs, along with GB 2312 companions.
  • Founder Lanting [兰亭/蘭亭] TrueType 200. $125 from TwinBridge. A set of 62 fonts, GB 2312 paired with GB/T analogs (one is GB/T only). Many also have Big5 and/or GB5 companions. If you need Founder fonts, this is a good way to get started.

There are, of course, various other bundles available from these foundries and others. But few of these can be found at competitive prices outside of East Asia. The above vendors are two exceptions to the rule.

Fonts via Apple

Apple distributes a selection of Chinese outline fonts with OS 9 and OS X:

Font name Chinese Charset OS 9 OS X 10.2 OS X 10.3 OS X 10.4 OS X 10.5
Arial Unicode MS   Unicode         v1.01x
STHeiti Light [STXihei] 华文细黑 GB18030   x x x x
STHeiti 华文黑体 GB18030   x x x x
STKaiti 华文楷体 GB18030   x x x x
STSong 华文宋体 GB18030   x x x x
STFangsong 华文仿宋 GB18030   x x x x
Hei   GB2312 x x x x x
Kai   GB2312 x x x x x
Song   GB2312 x x x    
Fang Song   GB2312 x x x    
Beijing   GB2312 x x      
LiHei Pro Medium 儷黑 Pro Big-5E
HKSCS		     x x x
LiSong Pro Light 儷宋 Pro Big-5E
HKSCS		     x x x
BiauKai 標楷體 Big-5 x x x x x
Apple LiGothic Medium 蘋果儷中黑 Big-5 x x x x x
Apple LiSung Light 蘋果儷細宋 Big-5 x x x x x
Taipei   Big-5 x x      

Fonts via Microsoft

Microsoft distributes PMingLiU, SimSun, and SimHei with Windows 2000/XP. Chinese editions include DFKai-SB. Simplified Chinese editions also include FangSong and KaiTi.

Windows Vista comes with updated versions of all of the above plus two new system fonts, each in two weights (regular and bold): Microsoft JhengHei [微軟正黑體] for traditional Chinese and Microsoft YaHei [微软雅黑体] for simplified Chinese.

All editions of Office 2000/XP include Arial Unicode MS, PMingLiU, and SimSun. Office 2003 includes only Arial Unicode MS, since PMingLiU and SimSun are included in its system requirements.

Note: PMingLiU and SimSun are proportional fonts, while MingLiU and NSimSun are monospaced. The difference only applies to Roman text.

Font name Chinese Charset File name Office 2000 Windows 2000 Office XP Windows XP Office 2003 Windows Vista
Arial Unicode MS   Unicode ARIALUNI.TTF v0.84   v1.00   v1.01  
PMingLiU
MingLiU		 新細明體
細明體		 Unicode mingliu.ttc v3.00* v3.00 v3.21 v3.21   v6.02†‡
PMingLiU-ExtB
MingLiU-ExtB		   UnicodeB mingliub.ttc           v5.00†
DFKai-SB 標楷體 Unicode kaiu.ttf   v3.00   v3.00   v5.00
SimHei 黑体 GBK simhei.ttf   v2.10   v3.02   v5.01‡
SimSun
NSimSun		 宋体
新宋体		 GBK simsun.ttc v2.10* v2.11 v3.03 v3.03   v5.00‡
SimSun-ExtB   UnicodeB simsunb.ttf           v5.00
FangSong 仿宋 GB18030 simfang.ttf           v5.01
KaiTi 楷体 GB18030 simkai.ttf           v5.01
FangSong_GB2312 仿宋_GB2312 GB2312 SIMFANG.TTF   v2.00   v2.00    
KaiTi_GB2312 楷体_GB2312 GB2312 SIMKAI.TTF   v2.00   v2.00    

Unicode = Contains Unicode's CJK Unified Ideographs block.
UnicodeB = Contains Unicode's CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B block (only).
* = SimSun (simsun.ttf) and PMingLiU (pmingliu.ttf) only.
† = Includes MingLiU_HKSCS and MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB.
‡ = Also supports GB18030 and/or Unicode's CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A block.

All fonts distributed by Microsoft with Windows/Office 2000 and above support Unicode.

The Office 2000/XP/2003 Proofing Tools (and Chinese editions) include the same set of 14 additional fonts, as follows:

  • GBK character set: LiSu [SIMLI.TTF, 隶书], YouYuan [SIMYOU.TTF, 幼圆], STXihei [STXIHEI.TTF, 华文细黑], STKaiti [STKAITI.TTF, 华文楷体], STSong [STSONG.TTF, 华文宋体], STZhongsong [STZHONGS.TTF华文中宋], STFangsong [STFANGSO.TTF, 华文仿宋]
  • GB 2312 and GB/T character sets: FZShuTi [FZSTK.TTF, 方正舒体], FZYaoti [FZYTK.TTF, 方正姚体]
  • GB 2312 character set: STCaiyun [STCAIYUN.TTF, 华文彩云], STHupo [STHUPO.TTF华文琥珀], STLiti [STLITI.TTF, 华文隶书], STXingkai [STXINGKA.TTF, 华文行楷], STXinwei [STXINWEI.TTF, 华文新魏]

The Office XP/2003 Proofing Tools (and Chinese editions) also include the font SimSun (Founder Extended) [SURSONG.TTF, 宋体-方正超大字符集]. Created in January 2001, it contains over 64,000 hanzi, including most of the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B block. It is included with the Microsoft Office XP/2003 Proofing Tools CDs, and also comes with Chinese editions of Office XP/2003. Works perfectly in OS X 10.3. Install it in the /Library/Fonts folder, and re-login after installing it. To avoid problems in OS X 10.4, you should use Font Book to install this font. Use File > Add Fonts...

Troubleshooting:

  • Both mingliu.ttc and/or mingliub.ttc cause application crashes in Adobe Creative Suite 2, notably Photoshop. Upgrade to Creative Suite 3 to fix the problem.

Font Editors

FontLab TypeTool

FontLab's TypeTool 2 allows you to create new and edit existing TrueType fonts with Chinese characters. Limited to the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode.

For OS 9.2+ and OS X 10.3+. US$99. The free demo allows you to make fonts containing up to 20 characters!

See: http://www.fontlab.com/html/typetool.html

FontLab AsiaFont Studio

AsiaFont Studio is a professional font tool designed for handling CJK fonts in all formats. Full Unicode support.

For OS 9.2+ and OS X 10.3+. US$1999.

See: http://www.fontlab.com/html/asiafontstudio.html

Font Managers

Apple Font Book

Comes with OS X 10.3 and later. Font Book is a font viewer and organizer, with the ability to enable and disable fonts.

LinoType FontExplorer

Free. OS X 10.3.9 and above. FontExplorer supports CJK fonts in all formats.

See: http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

Extensis Suitcase Fusion

OS X 10.3.9 and above. Suitcase Fusion is a new Cocoa application, built to replace two Carbon/Classic applications (Suitcase and Font Reserve). It supports CJK fonts in all formats, but as of June 2006 its features for handling non-Latin fonts were not complete.

See: http://www.extensis.com/