Chinese standard web Fonts

Standard Simplified Chinese web fonts:

Windows	OS X
Blackbody: Simhei	Holly Blackbody: Hiragino Sans GB [NEW for SNOW LEOPARD]
Song Body: SimSun	Chinese fine Black: Stheiti light [Stxihei]
New song body: Nsimsun	Chinese blackbody: Stheiti
Imitation: Fangsong	Chinese Italic: Stkaiti
Italics: Kaiti	XXFarEastFont-Arial: Stsong
Imitation _gb2312:fangsong_gb2312	XXFarEastFont-Imitation: Stfangsong
Italic _gb2312:kaiti_gb2312
Microsoft Elegance Blackbody: Microsoft Yahei [as of Win7]

Good habit of using Chinese fonts in CSS: Use Chinese and English names in Chinese fonts

When declaring a Chinese font, it also declares the Latin name and Chinese name of the text body.

The advantage of this is that you can use Chinese fonts regardless of whether your Chinese font is stored in Latin or Chinese names.

Font-family:tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, "Microsoft Yahei", "Microsoft Jas Black", Stxihei, "Chinese fine black", sans-serif;

The declaration of the English font is placed before the Chinese font declaration

It's not the official rule, it's just my personal preference, why am I doing this? Because English characters always do not include Chinese fonts, but Chinese fonts contain a-Z word, so if you first declare the text body, then the declaration of the English font will not be executed.

So, if you first declare the English font, for the English alphabet will first execute the English font, for the unresolved text will try to use fallback font (that is, the font declared after the English font).

For example, the following:

code example:

Font-family:georgia, "Times New Roman", "Microsoft Yahei", "Microsoft Jas Black", Stxihei, "Chinese fine black", serif;

Declaring Microsoft Fonts and MAC fonts

Just like English fonts, you must declare at least the fonts that apply to Windows and the Chinese fonts that apply to your Mac. As to which one should declare first, you need to see what platform you are targeting.

Do I need to use quotation marks to draw Chinese fonts?

You do not need to do the following:

Font-family:georgia, "Times New Roman", "Microsoft Yahei", "Microsoft Jas Black", Stxihei, "Chinese fine black", serif;

You should do this:

Font-family:georgia, "Times New Roman", "Microsoft Yahei", Microsoft Jas, Stxihei, XXFarEastFont-black, serif;

Main Chinese font Arial 12th –simsun 12PT Font

Font-family:arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana, Song body, SimSun, Chinese fine black, Stxihei, Sans-serif;

Microsoft ya Black –microsoft yahei

Font-family:tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, "Microsoft Yahei New", "Microsoft Yahei", "Microsoft Jas Black", Arial, SimSun, Stxihei, "Chinese fine black", sans -serif;

Imitation –fangsong

Font-family:georgia, "Times New Roman", "Fangsong", "imitation", Stfangsong, "Chinese imitation", serif;

Italic –kaiti

Font-family:georgia, "Times New Roman", "Kaiti", "italics", Stkaiti, "Chinese italics", serif;

@FONT-face to handle Chinese?

Considering that most Chinese font files is kinda ginormous and typically include at least base glyphs, Chinese does N ' t lend itself very well to @font-face embedding. Many of my non-standard Chinese fonts run upwards of 5MB, and the @font-face generator over at Font Squirrel have a 2MB fil E size limit. So, while it's impractical on a CMS platform where do you ' re dealing with a bunch of user-generated data, that's not to say I T can ' t is done.

You can use the Codeandmore fontface generator-to-skip over Font squrrel ' s file size limit if you ' re so inclined.

Typekit-style SYSTEMS for Chinese FONTS

[November, UPDATE:] There is another. I just found out about a company called justfont based out of Taiwan that offers a typekit-style font hosting fo R Chinese @font-face style fonts. They ' ve got a decent library of font options, both for simplified and traditional Chinese characters (less for simplified characters, but. Problem:they don ' t has a english-language interface, so if you can ' t work in Chinese, and you'll have a problem using the S Ite. They do, however, an offer for Facebook sign-up, so you'll be a able to get that far at least.

[Sept 5, UPDATE:] Aaaand another one:Youziku.com. This one is Awesome–they has a much bigger font library than Justfont. My Shop had tested these guys out, and for the most part, everything works well. They offer three embedding methods for their fonts, but only the WebService script really gives you similar usage freedom To @font-facetwo issues this I ' ve Found:extra-thin fonts displayed at small sizes come off looking super ragged to the PO int of being unusable. And both, if you use their hosted service, there's a little jump in page load–the page loads the content first then appli Es the font to it, so you see unstyled characters for a split second before the font settles into place.

What's up with the NEW free FONT, SOURCE HAN SANS?

So, Adobe, who puts out Source Sans (中文版) font a few years ago, teamed up with Google summer to Releasesource H An Sans, the best thing-happen to Chinese web fonts basically ever. Though These fonts is not yet available as hosted fonts on 中文版 servers (desktop version only on Typekit and Google as  of Dec), the font is hosted in Youziku.com, under its Chinese font name, Siyuan blackbody. Best thing about the It's that unlike most Chinese fonts, this one comes in 7 weights all the The-the-from-Extralight to Heavy –yeah, baby. I hope to see this on Google/typekit as a hosted option soon.

And what about NOTO SANS HANS?

Google is currently (DEC) working on a free font called "Noto Sans" (Here's The project page), which aims to support All of the world ' s languages. There is Chinese versions available for download, but these is not hosted on Google webfonts yet. The font ' s lovely, though–you should get it. Google does offer a "Early Access webfonts" page, where you can snag embedding code for experimental fonts. There is a couple of traditional Chinese fonts there, but no simplified fonts yet. A Few versions of Noto Sans also support Pinyin.

What's the DEAL with GOOGLE FONTS and China?

Mainland Chinese Internet users is no longer able to connect to the Google Font API since the government blocked access T o Google. Have a Google webfont on your Chinese website basically hangs the loading process for ages for users based in China as T He site tries to render the font. Sometimes it works, mostly it fails. No one ever said life is fair.

[December, UPDATE:] So, Qihoo-hosting a Google Webfont mirror for Chinese users. If your site is only targeting China, you can use the Qihoo mirror to load Google webfonts. If your site is targeting both china-based and non-china-based users, the recommendation are to load a script that decides Which Webfont source to use based on the user ' s IP. Get the details on SEO Shifu.

Need A CUSTOM Chinese FONT OR logotype made?

Makefont.com:These Guys is hot-shit design-y Chinese typographers. and buy their ready-made fonts, they ' re really cool.

What ' S the difference between BIG5 and GB2312 Chinese FONTS?

Quick history Lesson:about-years ago, chairman Mao controlled mainland China. And he decided that literacy rates were super low because Chinese characters were crazy complicated to write. So he decided to "simplify" the whole written language. He hired some linguists, they came up with a writing system that removed a ton of the strokes from many of the characters, Reducing the complexity of written Chinese.

Problem:mao ' s little plan only effected the people in Mainland China. That means this all the Chinese people living outside of Mao's sphere of influence–people in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and C Hinese immigrants to the U.S. and Abroad–didn ' t adopt the new system at all. So now, the Chinese characters can be written and the ways. One is the old, "traditional characters". Or, as we call it in fonts on the web, Big5. The other-is-the-new-to-used only-in-China proper, "simplified characters", or GB2312.

If you is choosing fonts for a site this targets mainland China, choose GB2312. If you is targeting Hong Kong, China towns abroad and immigrant communities, Taiwan, etc., use BIG5. Most Chinese websites offer both on multi-lingual platforms. The fonts on this page is all GB2312 and most of them have Big5 versions.

(Dear type-a Devs:yup, I know. I know what a encoding is. It ' s just easier to explain the this, Kthxbye.)

Chinese standard web Fonts