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ZDT: Hanzi fonts not conistant


cwmccabe

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I'm using ZDT 0.6.1 on Ubuntu Linux. I'm trying to deal with an annoying problem concerning the fonts used to display the Chinese characters. The fonts are not consistent. For example, when going through a set of flashcards, some characters will be displayed in a font with sharp edges to each stroke, and another will be displayed with rounded edges. The fonts are inconsistent not just in the flashcards, but also in the dictionary and editor. The rounded edges often make characters like kou3 (口) appear like circles rather than squares.

I haven't found a solution to this problem yet. Has anyone else experienced or solved this? :help I would like all the characters to display in a font like 妈妈 in the attached images, not like coffee.

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Thanks, yes. I didn't realize some of the fonts could render Chinese characters so poorly. I installed and am now using ZenKai and/or ShanHeiSun and it works well. As another example of why this was so annoying before, see the character for 喝 before and after below.

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A font won't contain every character, but hopefully it will contain every character you need. Some fonts contain a lot fewer characters than others, and some cater specifically for either simplified or traditional characters.

When the font in use doesn't have a way to display a particular character, one of two things can happen:

1. It replaces the character with a square so you can see there's something missing

2. It grabs the character from some other font, so it might look funny but at least you can read it.

It sounds like you're experiencing the second effect. The solution is simply choosing a display font which caters better for the (number and type of) characters you want to use. If you don't already have a suitable font, grab some more, but check how many characters they can do (relative to other fonts) and also whether they are for simplified, traditional, or both. Sometimes they don't say but there's a tell-tale "S" or "T" or "ST" in the font name.

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