Userdefined Characters

[lan2hao4]

Hello,

I develop a writing system for german, which use chinese characters. I use many normal 漢字 han4zi4, but no 形聲字 xing2sheng1zi4, and I also make characters special for german. I heard that there is a way to bring the special characters into the 字庫 zi4ku4 of my normal chinese input system. I just need to choose a normal syllabe of 普通話 pu3tong1hua4 to fix an input code. Well, but therefore I need the right program. I already found one:

http://www.abitz.com/schreib/chijapko.php3

Unfortunately the webside is only in german, and I don´t know if there is an english part. Well, you can see the screenshot of the fontmaker. Someone can use it to make own characters and add them to the 字庫. That can be also important for an linguist, because there are still characters missing in every normal 字庫. Maybe some years before I could not tipe something like 冏.

Well, the problem is, this programm is too expensive. And also I know only very less about this. I don´t know how can someone be able to recive this "userdefined characters".

Does anyone know about this things?

It would be really great if someone can help me, with this problem.

藍昊

[imron]

Sections of the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) and Supplementary Multilingual Plan (SMP) are set aside as private use areas - code points E000–F8FF for the BMP, and F0000-FFFFF, 100000-10FFFF for the SMP (read more on private use areas here). What this means is that if you create your own fonts, with your own characters at these codepoints, then they will be displayed in any unicode compliant program that is using that font, and that encounters a code-point in the range of characters you have created.

Regarding using these with an existing IME, if the IME supports Unicode and allows you to define an arbitrary unicode code-point as output for a given input-string, then it should work.

As far as font creation is concerned, have a look at this page, for editors and ways to create fonts.

[lan2hao4]

Hi, thank you for your help!

Well, I had a look on the webside you send to me, and I found this programm:

http://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/asiafont-studio/

It seems that these programms have the character creating function I need. But its so expensive. Is there no Freeware with this function? And does all the programs are in this price class?

[imron]

I've never made fonts myself, but I wonder if this or this are similar to what you're looking for?

[zhwj]

The cheapest way to do it is to use Microsoft's Private Character Editor that comes free with Windows (Start -> Run -> "eudcedit").

Then you pick a font (or select all fonts), then point the codespace to what imron has noted above, and go to town.

Then, when you want someone else to be able to use your new characters, you simply send them the EUDC file (it's EUDC.TTE in the fonts folder if you chose "all fonts", and something else if you only linked it with one or two - you'd need to have the other person change their registry if not all the fonts are linked, however). There's even an IME link option, or you can simply use charmap to select and copy them.

When I used it, the results weren't the greatest, but it's got pixel-wise editing, copy and paste, and simple curve fitting.

Here's a quick rundown I found through Google.

[lan2hao4]

Well, I want to type my characters in msn, emails, icq, word, everything. And I don´t want to copy them, I want to type them.

They are characters based on chinese radicals, which show relations between german words or european words. I just wanted to give every character a mandarin pronounciation, just for adding them into the character set on my computer - on the free places for userdefined characters. If I use chinese characters on the computer, to write german, then I just think in german, and type in chinese. Between there could be some letters. Like here: d他 (der), w他 (wer) = who?. Sometimes one of the special characters are made, already exist in chinese, but with an unimportant meaning. An example: I use 噯 for kissing, and in chinese its just an interjection. Maybe I wount use characters for interjections, so all words with 口 on the left, could be verbs, and things you do with the mouth. Well, but for the characters which I created by myself, and which really don´t exist in any way before, therefore I need this program.

I hope the problem is clear now.

[imron]

Well, I want to type my characters in msn, emails, icq, word, everything

If you are creating a font with your own special characters, then only people who have your special font installed will be able to see these characters. They won't be available for anyone you send an email/word doc/message to.

[lan2hao4]

"If you are creating a font with your own special characters, then only people who have your special font installed will be able to see these characters. They won't be available for anyone you send an email/word doc/message to."

Does this person also need the special character creating program which I have? (which I will have)

Well, the windows fontmaker seems useless, because, it the character even don´t appear to myself, if I put them into an email. And I can not use it to add characters to my normal chinese input system. If they even don´t appear to myself, how can they appear to someone else?

And I guess I want a good program, so I have to buy one, I hope I will find a cheep one.

[imron]

Does this person also need the special character creating program which I have? (which I will have)

No, but you would need to send them the font that you created with this program.

As for cheap/free programs, the two links I provided in my last post were to a cheap/free fontmakers.

[lan2hao4]

Hello imron,

You wote that there are some codepoints, which I can use to add my own characters. How many are these? I tried a demo version of a program, and had a look at the list of characters. Some places in the list had a character, but was called "userdefined areas". But there was just very less of them. Maybe just 20 or 30. Thats really not enough! I will need some hundred. What can I do?

[imron]

Thousands! In the BMP, there are 6400 private use characters at your disposal (any character in the code range e000 to f8ff). In the SMP there are an additional 131072 codepoints set aside for personal use.

Just make sure the fontmaker is configured to be making a unicode font, and then create your characters at the codepoints I listed above.