TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Mar 25 15:44:33 EDT 2024

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LUC DEVROYE


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Pinyin Joe's

Chinese Fonts included in Microsoft Windows XP:

  • SimSun: Simplified Song, proportional
  • NSimSun: Simplified Song, monospaced
  • SimHei: Simplified/Traditional Hei, proportional
  • PMingLiU: Traditional Xi Ming (Song), proportional
  • MingLiU: Traditional Xi Ming (Song), monospaced
I quote the remarks made at Pinyin Joe's page under the banner What's missing [in the Microsoft collection]?

Replacements for SimSun and NSimSun with more characters have been available since 2001. "SimSun 18030" conforms to the current PRC government standard, GB 18030, which supports a larger portion of Unicode. Microsoft could not sell XP in mainland China without it, but did not include this in other country versions of Windows until Vista and Win7. Elsewhere on this site I have more info about GB code, but all you really need to know is that you can download the SimSun 18030 update from Microsoft.

Replacements for MingLiu and PMingLiu are also available to keep you current with the versions of those fonts on Windows 7 and Vista, which now support more Unicode characters based on a Hong Kong standard released in 2004. You can ignore any instructions from Microsoft requiring Language Packs or different Locale settings, they are not correct. Just go ahead and install: First enable East Asian languages on your system, then download the MingLiu update from Microsoft. The file ending in "x86.exe" is for 32-bit systems; the file ending in "x64.exe" is for 64-bit systems.

You have the SimHei headline font with simplified Chinese Heiti characters and a limited set of traditional Chinese Heiti characters. There are not enough characters in this font to cover the larger range of a standard traditional character set.

You are missing two standard Chinese fonts that are normally in a basic set: the Kai and Fangsong fonts, which you could say are roughly equivalent to ornate or italic styles. Often a basic set of traditional Chinese fonts include all of the above plus the Weibei and Yuan fonts as well. These fonts are very common, and you should consider buying a third-party font package if you are doing more than just casual e-mail and messaging.

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file name: Chinese Fonts Windows7







Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html