fixed width Chinese fonts?

[Eric]

Does anyone know of any fixed-width Chinese fonts for the mac? I do
most of my writing and translating in plain text (in emacs), and all
the Chinese fonts are apparently some species of variable-width.
Specifically, the problem seems to be that Chinese characters take up
a fractional ratio of the width of ASCII characters, which makes some
calculations of text width next to impossible. Does anyone know of a
font that uses an integer ratio of ASCII characters? Any advice much
appreciated!

Thanks,
Eric

[TenThousandThings]

I'm not sure you mean -- where did you get that information about
fractional versus integer ratios? Isn't pretty much all Chinese text
fixed-width (monospaced), i.e., all hanzi are the same width? The only
variation is in how different fonts handle standard Latin text and
punctuation (including space characters). Most are variable-width
(proportional) for that. Of course, you can use full-width Chinese-
style punctuation instead, but that has a distinct look.

Anyhow, for Latin text and punctuation, the only monospaced Chinese
fonts that I'm aware of are NSimSun (as opposed to the proportional
SimSun) and MingLiU (as opposed to the proportional PMIngLiU), which
come with Windows. I'd try them. NSimSun might be a better choice.
MingLiU has some issues in Mac OS X that might or might not be a
problem, so it's best avoided if you can do so. See here:
http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/fonts.html#Microsoft

If you're in 10.5 or later you'll have no trouble with these. I'm sure
there are others, but I don't know which.

[Eric]

Thanks for the response!

I can't claim to really understand what's going on here, but here's
the thread I'm working from:

http://www.mail-archive.com/emacs-...@gnu.org/msg08599.html

I've found a couple other things online to the same effect, but never
with any more detail.

That thread is exactly the problem I'm having: I'm using tables in org-
mode in emacs and the spacing is wonky. I installed NSimSum and while
it's a handsome font the problem persists.

It's not a fatal issue, but if there's anything that can be done it
would be great to get this cleared up...

Thanks again,
Eric

[Eric Rasmussen]

You could try the bitmap font that comes with OS X -- I left it off of
the OS X font chart just out of sheer laziness -- look for "GB18030
Bitmap" (the file should be in /Library/Fonts/NISC18030.ttf). It's
designed to work in Terminal so it may do the trick. However, it's not
terribly legible.

I guess you could also try the old Taipei or Beijing system fonts of
yore, but I wouldn't be too optimistic. I have a working OS 9 machine
in the attic, so contact me off list if you'd like them.

Eric (Rasmussen)

[Eric]

Actually I might have been too hasty in dismissing NSimSun. The
ellipses are still taking up too much space, but the rest of the
characters seem right on. I think we have a winner!

Thanks,
Eric (Abrahamsen)

On Sep 12, 8:10 am, Eric Rasmussen <hello.ras...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You could try the bitmap font that comes with OS X -- I left it off of
> the OS X font chart just out of sheer laziness -- look for "GB18030
> Bitmap" (the file should be in /Library/Fonts/NISC18030.ttf). It's
> designed to work in Terminal so it may do the trick. However, it's not
> terribly legible.
>
> I guess you could also try the old Taipei or Beijing system fonts of
> yore, but I wouldn't be too optimistic. I have a working OS 9 machine
> in the attic, so contact me off list if you'd like them.
>
> Eric (Rasmussen)
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Eric <gir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the response!
>
> > I can't claim to really understand what's going on here, but here's
> > the thread I'm working from:
>

> > http://www.mail-archive.com/emacs-orgm...@gnu.org/msg08599.html