Adobe Source Han and Google Noto CJK in High Sierra

[TenThousandThings]

On Friday, January 19, 2018 at 12:04:28 PM UTC-5, TenThousandThings wrote:

... [2] The discussion above is just about the fonts supplied by Apple. Once I put other fonts on this computer it will be harder to see what Apple’s doing. For example, once I install the comprehensive Google Noto CJK or Adobe Source Han fonts (now available in both sans and serif), all of the code points in Ultra Character Map will be filled in with glyphs. Onward! ...

Ugh, my understanding of what these fonts are was incorrect! Wishful, thinking, I guess. But they are still useful and I think essential for High Sierra, as they provide a serif font to go with PingFang.

In short, they are very similar to PingFang in terms of character sets. Exactly the same with regard to SC -- version 1.004 fully supports 通用规范汉字表. I'm not sure about TC/HK coverage. Adobe is clear about what they support -- CNS 11643 Planes 1 & 2 (a.k.a. Big 5), and "Hong Kong SCS" (which is presumably HKSCS-2008). I'll have to check to see if Apple is doing the same thing -- I think it's possible Ping Fang TC and HK go well beyond that. After all, they're not trying to jam Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese into a single font.

Version 2.000 will support separate TC and HK fonts, and presumably also HKSCS-2016.

FWIW, I installed the "Super OTC" version and it screwed up my Simplified Chinese smart collection in Font Book by including the JP and KR fonts in there. Not sure if installing the regional versions would fix that:

https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/

You can get Adobe's Source Han through GitHub (you don't need to have TypeKit). Info is here:

https://source.typekit.com/source-han-serif/

If you wanted to install just one font family to complement Apple's High Sierra Chinese fonts, this (Source Han Serif) would be it, or Noto Serif CJK.

Info on Source Han Sans is here:

https://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/15/introducing-source-han-sans/

[Eric Rasmussen]

On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 5:23 PM, TenThousandThings wrote:

FWIW, I installed the "Super OTC" version and it screwed up my Simplified Chinese smart collection in Font Book by including the JP and KR fonts in there. Not sure if installing the regional versions would fix that:

https://www.google.com/get/noto/help/cjk/

FYI, installing the regional versions (instead) doesn't help with the smart collections problem. But they don't include the monospaced versions, so that's good for me because I have no use for those.

These are Ken Lunde's labor of love -- the basic idea is a set of fonts that can be used together as a unified font in a document that combines CJK languages, with the forms of the glyphs for each language correct for that region. They dropped the ball on Hong Kong, but that should be rectified in v 2.000.

I may come back later and examine how well these work together in practice: in Mellel, for example, or Microsoft Word, or Pages. You set them as the defaults for each language and off you go, at least in theory. InDesign works well, obviously, because Adobe is the creative force behind this initiative.

[Note: the SC fonts contain both SC and TC code points for the core 8,105 characters encoded in Unicode as of 2016 and listed in the 通用规范汉字表 standard (a.k.a. TGH-2013), so there's no need for a separate font for mainland-style 繁體字.]