If you still don't get what I'm trying to say in the topic title, I'm referring to the Type 1 version of the Lucida Grande font that looks more like it's counterpart on Mac OS X, not the TrueType version that looks "Windows" (can't find a beter word to describe it). One thing that has been preventing me from using that version of Lucida Grande is the lack of Far East character support, such as Chinese and Japanese characters. I have quite a few files on my computer with Chinese or Japanese names (mostly MP3 versions of songs ripped from my Chinese/Japanese music albums) and I also frequent Japanese web sites a lot (don't ask). The problem, however, is that, instead of displaying Chinese/Japanese characters, it displays dots instead. This makes identifying music files and web browser windows/tabs difficult; sometimes I have to try a few times before getting the right one. I'm sure that it's possible to have Far East characters displayed when using the Type 1 version of Lucida Grande (this screenshot by MEGUMI says it all), it's just that I probably messed up something or something needs tweaking. Or is it that the Far East characters are displaying because it's being used under a Japanese language operating system? Either way, I hope that there is some way to solve this problem.

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Erm... hello? Does anybody even have a clue?

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I've tried looking for this before,
A lot of japanese themers mod fonts, and usually combine another font with it.
Maybe try asking someone for it...

This begs two questions:

1. How do you modify the fonts to include Far East Characters?
2. What fonts do they combine to acheive the result?

I might try asking for the font as a last resort...

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Well, I decided to do some searching for the Lucida Grande font in Japanese web sites, and I came across a few web sites mentioning something about a combination of the AquaKana and LucidaGrande fonts, as well as a third Japanese font called "ヒラギノ角ゴPro". I then tried to search for a download link, but all I got was either dead ends, dead pages, or even Japanese pornography web pages . I then tried to search for the AquaKana font, but all I got was information about fonts in Mac OS X.

Well, but at least I know what fonts they used to modify their fonts. But the question remains: how do they modify it? And also, where can I get the Windows version of the AquaKana fonts?

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Oh, it seems the AquaKana fonts are open type fonts in Mac OSX.

http://osakattf.hp.infoseek.co.jp/
The Osaka unicode seems nice, I'm going to try it out.

The Osaka fonts don't look as smooth as the fonts I see in Japanese screenshots. I tried looking elsewhere, but all my searches were fruitless. Worst still, I can't get FontForge to work.

I'm gettiing desparate. Could someone might as well convert and merge them into one font and send them my way? Thanks.

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Well I've heard you had to install some basic Japanese and Chinese language font packages before they work. Hmm. Haven't fiddled with that sort of thing before but I'll see what I can find.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eX.A.K.R. @ Nov 19 2005, 11:08 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
The Osaka fonts don't look as smooth as the fonts I see in Japanese screenshots. I tried looking elsewhere, but all my searches were fruitless. Worst still, I can't get FontForge to work.

I'm gettiing desparate. Could someone might as well convert and merge them into one font and send them my way? Thanks.
[/b][/quote]
Yeah the Osaka has horrrible roman, but the kana's the best I have now..
I'll look in to merging it with something else..

Oh and you might wanna check aqua soft, there's some good topics on modfiying fonts.

Attached Images

kana.png (841 Bytes, 6 views)

I just found out something:

If I turn on Standard font smoothing I get this result:


Notice how smooth the fonts in Notepad look while the others look so jaggy?

Now, with ClearType on:


The fonts now all look ClearType-smooth, including those that looked smooth before!

I think that the fonts I used had their own font smoothing information included (I think it's called GASP), but ClearType overrides any such font smoothing information when it is applied to TrueType and OpenType fonts. It doesn't seem to affect Type 1 fonts though, which is why the Type 1 version of Lucida Grande still looks Mac OS X - smooth even with ClearType on.

I wonder if it is possible to take the Japanese and Chinese characters in the Osaka font and merge them into the Type 1 version of Lucida Grande. I'm aware that they are two different types of fonts (Osaka being TrueType fonts).

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