Which characters should be used for comparing fonts?

[wibr]

Most characters look very similar in different fonts while a few apparently leave more room for the designers. Recently, we had the topic about 起 (open or closed 己), but there is also 真 (edit: 直) which can have another stroke at the bottom or the 道 with an extra dot at the left side. Then there are different styles e.g. for Taiwan and Mainland China. The number of characters included in the font is also relevant.

 

So my question is: which characters

1) look very different in some fonts (so that a beginner might think they are different characters)

2) can be used to identify the style (e.g. 艹 with three or four strokes)

3) could be used as an indicator for the scope of the font (e.g. no or limited traditional characters)

 

I am only talking about standard fonts, no seal script or anything like that.

[Hofmann]

Some use 永東國酬愛鬱靈鷹袋. Some use 南去經三國，東來過五湖.

[lips]

3.  Scope of font:

Most of the "traditional" fonts from the mainland have many traditional characters missing.  It's better to use a font from Taiwan or Hong Kong to display traditional characters.

[lips]

2. Identify the style

Do you mean between kaishu, xingkai, xingcao, caoshu, lishu, zhuanshu? For the last last two, any character would look different from other styles. For caoshu, most characters are different.  For xingcao, almost any character with more than three or four strokes would look different from the standard kaishu.  For xingkai, take characters with 木, 礻，礻on the left, or 豕 (家，豬， ⋯⋯), or 氵, 心 at the bottom or left 忄, 火 at the left or bottom, 灬 , 雨 on the top, .......

 

This is not an exact science, as there are no standards (or popular accepted standards) for the different styles ither than kaishu.

[wibr]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

 

Regarding 2. I think the last two styles are not that relevant in daily usage. Actually, I just wanted to see if the font is in simplified style or traditional style, some fonts contain all the traditional characters but don't distinguish between 月 moon and meat. But I guess if I look at characters containing 月 or 艹 it should be easy to identify.

[lips]

真 (edit: 直) which can have another stroke at the bottom

Isn't the other version Japanese/Korean?

[Hofmann]

Part of the standards. Unicode differentiates some of them but not others, e.g. I can type 値 without specifying font, but not 直 with the L-shaped stroke.

[dwq]

Some use 永東國酬愛鬱靈鷹袋. Some use 南去經三國，東來過五湖.

I have that book    I think it was you who introduced me to that blog.

And here is why those characters are chosen: JUSTFONT BLOG: 關於「南去經三國，東來過五湖」

[lips]

Even though it's in unicode, 値 is Japanese/Korean and not Chinese.

[Hofmann]

Although uncommon, you will see some instances of it here in Chinese documents.