CJK Type

Unicode Version 6.1 was released today (January 31, 2012). This release triggered an update to the Unicode CMap resources for Adobe-Japan1-6 and Adobe-Korea1-2. The updated CMap resources are now available at the CMap Resources open source project that is hosted at Open @ Adobe. Details have been posted.

Given that Unicode has become the de facto encoding for digital text for modern environments, I encourage readers of this blog to explore for themselves what is new in Unicode Version 6.1.

When developing CID-keyed OpenType/CFF fonts that are based on one of our public ROSes—meaning Adobe-GB1-5, Adobe-CNS1-6, Adobe-Japan1-6, or Adobe-Korea1-2 (including their earlier Supplements)—it is a good idea to leverage existing resources. One of these resources are the registered GSUB (Glyph SUBstitution) features that we define when building OpenType/CFF fonts that are based on these ROSes. Of course, if you build an OpenType/CFF font based on the special-purpose Adobe-Identity-0 ROS, you’re pretty much on your own in terms of defining its GSUB features, but this CJK Type Blog post from earlier this month demonstrated how existing GSUB features for our public ROSes can be used as the basis for such fonts.
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Two of our font- and CJK-related Adobe Tech Notes were updated this week. One aspect of the update is for issuing a new Supplement or to correct representative glyphs. Another aspect is to typeset the document according to latest practices. For these Adobe Tech Notes, the latter aspect involved changing their static glyph tables into a form that is more efficient, more useful, and more dynamic.
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Given that I seem to be on a roll, it seems appropriate to begin a new AFDKO series that focuses on the all-important “features” file that is used to define GSUB and GPOS features, and to override the settings of various tables. Let’s begin with something relatively simple, such as overriding the ‘vmtx‘ table for a very specific class of glyphs: full-width Latin or Latin-like glyphs that rest on a Latin baseline, but which should be centered along the Y-axis when in vertical writing mode. Click here to download an archive that includes the various files and resources that are referenced in this article.
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In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I demonstrated how AFDKO tools can be used to convert name-keyed fonts into CID-keyed ones. Part 1 resulted in a font that uses the special-purpose Adobe-Identity-0 ROS, and Part 2 resulted in one that uses a standard character collection, specifically the Adobe-Japan1-0 ROS.

Part 3 in this series will demonstrate how GSUB features—using the ‘vert‘ GSUB feature as an example—can be added to both types of fonts. Click here to download an archive that includes the various files and resources that are referenced in this article.
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Part 2 of this series will demonstrate how AFDKO tools can be used to specify multiple FDArray elements (aka, hint dictionaries) when converting name-keyed fonts into CID-keyed ones. The same technique can be used to convert a CID-keyed font with a single FDArray element into one with multiple FDArray elements.

The sample font in Part 1 of this series does not have enough script “richness” to demonstrate this technique, so I crafted a different sample font for demonstration purposes. Again, the technique is easily scalable, and can thus handle thousands or tens of thousands of glyphs.
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The easiest method for representing an arbitrary name-keyed OpenType font as a CID-keyed one is to specify the special-purpose Adobe-Identity-0 ROS (/Registry, /Ordering, and /Supplement, referring to the three elements of the /CIDSystemInfo dictionary that is present in CIDFont resource headers), and in my experience, the easiest path to conversion is to leverage specific AFDKO tools, such as tx, mergeFonts, stemHist, autohint, and makeotf. As you should discover after reading this article, the conversion process is relatively straight-forward and simple.

The first part in this series will focus on the basic conversion process, from name-keyed to CID-keyed, ignoring any OpenType features that were present in the original name-keyed OpenType font, and also not taking advantage of multiple FDArray elements (aka, hint dictionaries) that are possible in CID-keyed fonts. Subsequent parts in this series will cover those topics.
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I realized today, thanks to a tweet by @mashabow, that we have never fully documented the “cidfontinfo” file.

This file started out as the primary control file for our first-generation CIDFont resource compiler, called mkcidfont, which ran only on SunOS.
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One question that I am often asked by OpenType CJK font developers is related to the XUID array, which is used by some environments for caching purposes. I decided to use this opportunity to write a brief tutorial on how to manage XUID arrays when developing OpenType CJK fonts.
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Dr. Ken Lunde
Senior Computer Scientist, CJKV Type Development

Jōyō Kanji (常用漢字) represents the kanji that are in common use in Japan. Prior to 1981, it was known as Tōyō Kanji (当用漢字) and included 1,850 kanji. The last time that Japan’s Jōyō Kanji set was revised was in 1981, and 95 kanji were added, bringing the number of kanji to 1,945.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Jōyō Kanji set has been revised. The announcement was made on November 30, 2010. The final outcome was that 196 kanji were added, and five kanji were removed. Thus, the total number of Jōyō Kanji is now 2,136.

Perhaps more interesting is the effect that the Jōyō Kanji revision has on the Jinmei-yō Kanji (人名用漢字) set. The relationship between these two sets of kanji is important: the Jinmei-yō Kanji set includes kanji, above and beyond Jōyō Kanji, that have been deemed suitable for use in personal names. Thus, any kanji in the Jōyō Kanji set can be used for personal names. The Jinmei-yō Kanji set currently includes 985 kanji. When compared to the new Jōyō Kanji set, 129 kanji are now common, and can thus be removed from the Jinmei-yō Kanji set. Also, because Jōyō Kanji and Jinmei-yō Kanji together serve as the foundation for the kanji used in personal names, any kanji that are removed from the Jōyō Kanji set should be grandfathered by adding them to the Jinmei-yō Kanji set. There are five such cases.

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