Chinese characters

[AlanHK]

I need to display a half dozen Chinese characters in a book.

The smallest Chinese font is 4 MB. Others are 8 or more. So embedding it makes the file 20 times larger for those 6 characters.

So I could optimise the font, but I don't want to optimise my other fonts.

Is there a tool that lets me choose which fonts to optimise?

Or is it safe to just let it use a system font? Does every system have a Chinese font these days?

[Toxaris]

Yes, you can subset a font before embedding it of course. I wouldn't count your luck with system fonts though...

[HarryT]

Yes, subsetting the font (so it only contains the glyphs actually used in the book) is the best way to do this.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

I need to display a half dozen Chinese characters in a book.

You could also convert them to SVG images with Inkscape.

[Turtle91]

Only 6 characters - I'd make them an image.

If you really want it as a font you can subset just that font by removing any other fonts and running it through a subsetter like Calibre editor, then add the other fonts back in. (wow...4 "fonts" in one sentence!! )

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Yes, you can subset a font before embedding it of course. I wouldn't count your luck with system fonts though...

I tried your fontshrinker and Epub optimizer.
Both just crashed "index out of bounds".
I'm running XP, I thought that was supported.
Maybe big Chinese fonts overflow something.

I don't have time at the moment to diagnose, but probably can try out other things in a few days.

Calibre's font optimizer works, and reduces the Chinese font from 6 MB to 3MB.
Which is better than nothing, but completely absurd for 5 unique characters.

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Only 6 characters - I'd make them an image.

It would be several images, one for each character, in the English text as the smart arse author shows off his Chinese literacy.

I'd have another series of hassles trying to make them display correctly, in the right position and size.

I need to get this out very soon, so if nothing else comes along, I'll just have to bloat the file by 3 MB.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

I tried your fontshrinker and Epub optimizer.
Both just crashed "index out of bounds".
I'm running XP, I thought that was supported.
Maybe big Chinese fonts overflow something.

I don't have time at the moment to diagnose, but probably can try out other things in a few days.

Calibre's font optimizer works, and reduces the Chinese font from 6 MB to 3MB.
Which is better than nothing, but completely absurd for 5 unique characters.

I think XP should work, that is probably not the problem. Also the size of the font should not be a problem. If you want me to fix it, I will need the file. I then can run the process through the debugger and see what goes wrong. I suspect it fails on another step.

With the FontShrinker you can also just enter the characters you want to keep and give only the chinese file. You should be getting a subsetted font that way, ready to be embedded into the ePUB.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

With the FontShrinker you can also just enter the characters you want to keep and give only the chinese file. You should be getting a subsetted font that way, ready to be embedded into the ePUB.

Thanks, I tried that, failed with the same "index" error.

Maybe tomorrow I will try again and with some other fonts and send you the files if it still fails.

[Toxaris]

Good luck!

[GrannyGrump]

Something you might try ---
Download TypeLight from http://cr8software.net/software.html
Now, this will get just a little tedious, but for only 5 or 6 characters, almost painless. The main pain is the endless confirmation dialogs you encounter.

Open TypeLight. Go to menu View-->Preferences, and make sure "Paste to make composite glyphs" is UNCHECKED.
Open the font you want to pull a character from.
Find the glyph (the small browser window on the right-hand side of the window lets you choose the Glyph List or the Code Pages, choose your poison). Double-click the glyph you want to copy. Press CTRL A or menu Glyph-->Select All.
Press CTRL X or menu Edit-->Copy Glyph.

Now go to menu Font--> New, enter a name or accept default. Now menu Glyph-->New Glyph. Press CTRL V or menu Edit-->Paste. Drag the vertical GREEN line to the right edge of the new glyph. If the glyph needs to be re-aligned horizontally or vertically, Select All, and use keyboard arrow keys to nudge it, or make sure the "Select" icon is highlighted on the small editing toolbar, and click and drag the glyph into place.

Now scroll through the Code Pages to find the character you want to map the glyph to. When you find and highlight it, click the little "Map" tab at the top of the browser dialog.

Go to menu File-->Save AS, and save your new custom font.

Reopen the source font to copy another glyph, open your custom font, make another new blank glyph and paste in the copy; map it to the desired character.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

If your source glyphs are from several different fonts, they might need resizing. To fix that problem, you would need the trial version of Type3.2 Pro. It is not time-limited, the only limitation is that it only saves the first 50 glyphs (and a nag screen every time you launch.) But it has a "stretch" button and other additional tools not available in TypeLight.

This step-through sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. Give it a try.

I have been intending to write a tutorial for this program for a while now, maybe this will get my wheels turning.