Re: fonts for gfxmenu, help needed

[Qianqian Fang <fangqq@gmail.com>]

Michal Suchanek wrote:
> Thanks for these tips. I guess wider by one px is acceptable for an
> alternate font, the fonts need not be displayed both at the same time.
> I am not sure if lower quality glyphs of correct shape are preferred
> over higher quality Chinese glyphs, though. I guess it would also
> depend on reader preference but it would be nice to hear the opinion
> of somebody familiar with Japanese.
>   

Using different fonts for different language makes life easier.

> For me the Song/Mincho variant fonts seem more readable at small
> sizes. Although the serifs aren't clearly visible they often add
> weight to the stroke ends and make them easier to recognize. However,
> this may be matter of preference/reader familiarity with the
> language/overall font quality/...
>
> I think that there is not much need for smaller fonts than the default
> 16px/12pt Unifont. It would be nice addition to have a font for
> fine-print but I am personally more interested in larger font sizes
> for captions or simple menus on high resolution screens.
>
> In the larger sizes the difference between different font styles is
> more visible.
>   

I misunderstood the call. You want to have fonts larger than 12pt,
not smaller, as we usually concern. That's fine, actually that is
a lot easier to handle.

I don't know what sizes you prefer, you can find bitmap resources
at typical sizes at 24px/32px/48px. Indeed, using freetype/autohint,
the rasterization of the popular CJK fonts may entirely usable
at these sizes.

In the following links, I experimented to hint/instruct/rasterize
the common CJK fonts, and I think the results are quite usable:

Hei-style:
  WQY Micro Hei@24px: http://wenq.org/upload/microhei_24px.png
  WQY Micro Hei@32px: http://wenq.org/upload/microhei_32px.png

Song-style:
  Japanese Mincho@24px (efont f24): 
http://wenq.org/upload/efont_micho_24px.png
  Chinese Song@32px (uming): http://wenq.org/upload/uming_32px.png

Except the efont 24px, all screenshots were made by rasterizing
vector fonts with freetype2 with autohints. Here are the steps
to reproduce:

1. open a TTF/TTC files in fontconfig, navigate to CJK zone (U4E00-U9FCB)
2. select tens to hundreds of glyphs, select menu Hint\Autohint
3. then, goto menu Element\Font Info...\PS Private, hit Add and add
   multiple PS hints, include StdHW and StdVW, use the guessed values
4. select menu Hint\AutoInstruct
5. select menu Element\Bitmap Strikes Available\, type whatever
   pixel sizes you want in the 3rd box, check freetype, and click ok
6. now from menu View, select the strike you just generated

As I mentioned earlier, if you want to produce Japanese Hei-style
Kanji bitmaps, you can apply the above procedures to
DroidSansJapanese. And of course, the bigger the size, the better the
results.

Let me know if you need any additional information.