Fonts howto
There are several kinds of font formats : Bitmapped fonts (Bitmap Distribution Format [BDF] & Hanzi Bitmap Font [HBF]) and Outline fonts (PostScript, TrueType and OpenType fonts).The following is more information on how to obtain or install Chinese or Chinese capable fonts.
Chinese Fonts
-
These fonts are developed specifically for the input and display of Chinese characters.
- Install Chinese language support using windows
update and three Chinese fonts will be installed on your system, MS Song an MS Hei for simplified Chinese and MingLiu for traditional Chinese
(windows 95/98/98Se/Me)
For Windows 2000/XP you can follow the follwoing procedures : Windows XP / Windows 2000 - When installing or updating Microsoft Word : choose setup - customize - office tools - international setup - and select X X. This will provide you with two Chinese fonts, SimSun for simplified Chinese and PmingLiu for traditional Chinese
- Together with your favorite FEP (Front End Processor)
- Web : check Luc Devroye's pages for a massive amount of links to Chinese fonts: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan
- Linux : Chinese Debian Fonts
To obtain the fonts for Microsoft Windows
Unicode Fonts (that including Chinese)
- There are two good Unicode fonts available, one from Microsoft
(Arial Unicode MS : local download) and the other one by Bitstream (local download).
Arial Unicode MS is included with all versions of Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1). It's also included in alle the XP-versions of Microsoft software.
Arial Unicode MS is 23 MB large, this is because it contains all glyphs of the unicode range (version 3.0). Most recent fonts are also made for unicode but they contain only the glyphs for several ranges, that is way unicode fonts come is several sizes (quality also plays a role ofcourse).
Install the fonts in Windows XP:
Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Fonts > Select the File menu > Install New Font > In the Folders section, browse to the folder that contains the font > select the fonts in the top 'list of fonts' > click OK - Web : check Unicode fonts for Windows computers
- Linux : Chinese Unicode fonts for debian
(more info on unicode)
Pinyin Fonts
- There are several pinyin available. Some work with a special key combination, other work by putting a number after the letter which you want to be 'toned' (i.e. a2 for the second tone on a).
- You can use unicode fonts to insert pinyin, see pinyin howto for more information
- web : check The Fools' Workshop for online available pinyin-fonts.
(more info on pinyin)
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