Is it possible to choose the default Chinese font for MS Word?

[skylee]

I use windows pinyin IME and google pinyin IME to type traditional characters on word documents and the default font is always "SimSun". I want to change the default font to "新細明體 ". Is it possible? And how?

PS - if I use input methods for traditional script then there is no problem. But since the 2 IME I use are originally intended for simplified script, the default font has become "SimSun".

[roddy]

Should be - I'm on Word 2002 and this works - Format > Font > select the fonts you want to use > press default at the bottom left.

That should make the changes to the normal.dot template which new documents are based on. You could also edit that template directly, but I think the above method should be easier.

[skylee]

Thanks for the reply. I've tried it and it doesn't work.

[imron]

This is Microsoft Word trying to be smart and automatically detect your input language based on the country code for your IME. When developing pinyinput I ran into basically the same problem and word switches the font of any characters with tones to SimSun . I'd also be interested to know if anyone has a fix for this. Roddy, your suggestion doesn't count as your version of Word is too old and this input detection seems to be a more recent "feature".

[Luobot]

In word 2003, you can select a "Latin text font" and an "Asian text font." When I type Chinese ("CH"), using the builtin windows ime with Chinese PRC, I get simplified characters in Arial Unicode MS, which is the best, I think, for the computer. When I switch to English ("EN"), I get regular Arial. When I use Pinyinput, I get SimSun, which doesn't match the other fonts in the document, so it's unfortunately unusable for typing into a word document, at least, for me.

Can Pinyinput be accessed from a word vba script?

[skylee]

Luobot, I don't understand your post.

I use Word 2003 too. The default "Latin" font is "Times New Roman" and the default Chinese font is "新細明體". But whenever I type Chinese (traditional script) using Windows or Google Pinyin IME, the font becomes "SimSun" automatically. I can turn the texts to "新細明體" manually but would love to have it done automatically.

[Luobot]

Uh-oh. Sounds like Word hell. I've noticed that if I select certain Asian fonts, it won't take and it won't complain; it will just substitute simsun. I don't have 新細明體 to test with (also don't have the google ime), but this font may conflict with some other setting that you have, so it goes to simsun. If so, it takes a bit of experimenting.

Can you can try Arial Unicode MS, exactly per my snapshot, above, and see if it works? That might help narrow the possibilities.

(Note - I'm assuming you're not accessing the template on an office network rather than your own.)

Edited July 24, 2008 at 07:45 AM by Luobot
typo

[imron]

As I said in my post above, each IME has to specify which country/language it belongs to and Word is trying to be smart and automatically set the font based on the language of the IME. It's one of the biggest gripes people have about Pinyinput which is specified as a Chinese IME, and so letters with tone marks get switched into SimSun font but normal letters dont. Actually, though just playing around with it now, it seems that setting the default font to MS Arial Unicode for both English and Chinese fixes this problem at least for Pinyinput.

[Luobot]

it seems that setting the default font to MS Arial Unicode for both English and Chinese fixes this problem at least for Pinyinput.

Also, "(Use Asian text font)" seems to work.

Edited July 24, 2008 at 03:52 PM by imron

[Quest]

I believe you could do something to the normal.dot template. I don't have 2003 installed now so can't test that.

[imron]

When I was setting the default fonts, I was changing them in normal.dot. It doesn't make a difference. There seems to be something hard-coded into word to detect the input language and set the font based on that.