Simplified Chinese Unicode Fonts

Simplified Chinese

Chinese languages/dialects are written using Han Ideographs. In the 1950s China began reforming the Chinese writing system in an attempt to simplify it. The reformed variety of writing is called "jiantizi" (简体字), which means "simple writing". This simplified writing is used in Singapore and most of China. Traditional writing is used elsewhere.

font sample *	font information
	Adobe Song Std L [ show all samples ] (AdobeSongStd-Light.otf from running alf_chs.exe) Source: Free download from Adobe Reader 7.0 font packs. The fonts aren't automatically installed in Windows' "Fonts" folder but can probably be found in the "Resource\CIDFont" subdirectory of whichever directory Adobe Reader 7.0 was installed in (for example C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0). Stats: Version 1.002 ... has 29,064 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs including Extension A, Bopomofo included extensions), Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages except Ukrainian, expanded spacing), Greek (expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Cyrillic, Greek, Han Ideographic, Kana, Latin
	AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni and AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni MBE [ show all samples ] (uming.ttf from ttf-arphic-uming_0.0.date-x.tar.gz and umingmbe.ttf from ttf-arphic-uming-mbe_0.0.date-x.tar.gz) Note: The "MBE" version of this font uses glyphs for Modern Bopomofo Extensions (developed by Mr. Yang Qing-Chu) instead of the Bopomofo Extended glyphs shown in the Unicode Standard. The MBE variants are considered easier to read and write. Source: Free download from debian.linux.org.tw. Stats: Version 1.000 has 18,509 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs including Extension A, Bopomofo including Extended), Cyrillic (Russian plus some additional letters, expanded spacing), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Default, Han Ideographic, Latin
	HAN NOM A & HAN NOM B [ show all samples ] (HAN NOM A.ttf and HAN NOM B.ttf from hannomH.zip) Source: Free download from the VietUnicode Project. Stats: Version 2.0 2005 has 79,322 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs including Extension A and Bopomofo in HAN NOM A; Extension B in HAN NOM B), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	HanWang FangSongMedium-Gb5 [ show all samples ] (wts47.ttf) Source: Free download from the Xinzhu County website. Stats: Version 1.3 has 14,148 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Greek, Latin
	HanWang KaiBold-Gb5 [ show all samples ] (wts11.ttf) Source: Free download from the Xinzhu County website. Stats: Version 1.3 has 14,148 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Greek, Latin
	HanWang SinSongThin-Gb5 [ show all samples ] (wts55.ttf) Source: Free download from the Xinzhu County website. Stats: Version 1.3 has 14,148 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Greek, Latin
	HanWang WeiBeiMedium-Gb5 [ show all samples ] (wts43.ttf) Source: Free download from the Xinzhu County website. Stats: Version 1.3 has 14,148 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Greek, Latin
	HuaTianKaiTi [ show all samples ] (htkt2.ttf) Source: Free download of Huation fonts from Hunan Huatian Information Industry Co., Ltd. Stats: Version 1.0 has 8,579 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	HuaTianSongTi [ show all samples ] (htst3.ttf) Source: Free download of Huation fonts from Hunan Huatian Information Industry Co., Ltd. Stats: Version 1.0 has 12,648 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	KaiTi_GB2312 [ show all samples ] (simkai.ttf from simkai.zip) Source: Free download from HappyChina. Stats: Version 2.00 has 7,580 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Han Ideographic (default, Chinese)
	KEY GB Mingti [ show all samples ] (gbmt.ttf) Source: Included with installation of the free 30-day trial of Chinese KEY shareware from Asia Communications Quebec Inc. (Click on "Downloads" on the left margin.) Note that the "ZZZ Mingti SBCS" font is different to the KEY GB Mingti font and is unusable outside KEY software. Stats: Version 1.10 has 27,366 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Latin
	MS Hei [ show all samples ] (mshei.ttf) Source: Part of the free "Chinese (Simplified) Language Pack" from Microsoft. Easiest way to find the download is to search Microsoft's site for ie_zht.exe. Stats: Version 1.00 has 26,272 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian) (expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	MS Song [ show all samples ] (mssong.ttf) Source: Part of the free "Chinese (Simplified) Language Pack" from Microsoft. Easiest way to find the download is to search Microsoft's site for ie_zht.exe. Stats: Version 1.00 has 26,304 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian) (expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	SimHei [ show all samples ] (simhei.ttf) Source: Comes with Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows 2000. Stats: Version 3.02 has 22,021 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian, expanded spacing), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Han Ideographic (default, Chinese)
	SimSun and NSimSun [ show all samples ] (simsun.ttc) Source: Comes with Microsoft's Windows XP, Office 2000, and FrontPage 2000. Stats: Version 3.03 has 22,141 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian, expanded spacing), Greek (expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Han Ideographic (default, Chinese)
	SimSun-18030 and NSimSun-18030 [ show all samples ] (SimSun18030.ttc from gbextsup.msi) Note: The Chinese range of this font is visually identical to "SimSun". Source: Part of the free GB18030 Support Package Stats: Version 2.06 (1.00 for the individual fonts) has 30,891 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs including Extension A, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian, expanded spacing), Greek (including polytonic, expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Yi (expanded spacing) OpenType Layout Tables: Han Ideographic (Chinese)
	STSong Std Acro Light [ show all samples ] (STSongStd-Light-Acro) Source: Free download from Adobe Reader 6.0 font packs. Stats: Version OTF 1.005 has 29,064 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs including Extension A, Bopomofo including Extended), Cyrillic (Russian, expanded spacing), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	TSC JSong S TT [ show all samples ] (cjsongeb.ttf) Note: May require a reboot before the font is usable. Source: Available via FTP from cle.linux.org.tw. Stats: Version 2.10 has 8,160 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian, expanded spacing), Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin
	UWPSTJ (GB) [ show all samples ] (UWPSTJ.ttf) Source: Included with installation of the free trial version of AsianSuite X2/2000/97 from UnionWay. Stats: Version 1.00 has 7,895 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Chinese (Jiantizi/Simplified Han Ideographs, Bopomofo), Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin

Font sizes for the various fonts above were adjusted to make them roughly the same size for the sake of comparison.
The characters used for the font samples do not necessarily form words but were chosen for visual variety:
平雪迎骨水直

Or use one of the RSS feeds to be informed automatically:

announcements of new fonts for simplified Chinese Han characters

announcements of all new fonts for any writing system

The Unicode implementation of Han Ideographs is described in chapter 12 (East Asian Scripts) of The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0.

The Unicode character code charts are available at the organization's website.

Names, images, properties and additional background/non-technical information about related Unicode blocks and their characters can be found on Unified CJK Ideographs, CJK Ideographs Extension A, Compatibility Ideographs, Kanbun, Bopomofo, and Bopomofo Extended pages (in English and German/Deutsch).

The Unicode Consortium has a CJK FAQ.

The Unihan database provides a wealth of information on each CJK Unified Ideograph.

Fontboard has information about the various Microsoft CJK language packs past and present.

BabelPad is a free, OpenType-enabled Unicode text editor with additional tools and utilities. It includes a CJK radical lookup covering all characters in the CJK, CJK-A and CJK-B Unicode ranges. Its CJK Pinyin lookup covers all characters in the CJK and CJK-A ranges plus around 200 characters in CJK-B. And it has a semi-intelligent Simplified/Traditional Chinese conversion tool.

primezero labs has free, Unicode enabled online dictionaries for Chinese

Writing system information at Wikipedia and Omniglot.

Contact

This page was last updated on 2006-02-21

WAZU JAPAN's Gallery of Unicode Fonts

Simplified Chinese

Introduction

Font Samples

Additional Information About These Font Samples

What's New?

Related Links

Contact