Illustrator

Create a composite font

You can mix characters from Japanese and roman fonts and use them as one composite font. Composite fonts are displayed at the beginning of the font list.

Important: Composite fonts must be based on Japanese fonts. For example, you cannot create fonts that include Chinese or Korean fonts, nor can you use Chinese or Korean-based composite fonts copied from another application.
  1. Choose Type > Composite Fonts. If you don’t see this command, select Show Asian Options in the Type preferences.
  2. Click New, enter the name for the composite font, and click OK.
  3. If you’ve previously saved composite fonts, you can also chose a composite font on which to base the new composite font.
  4. Select a category of characters.
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    Categories of characters

    A.
    Kanji

    B.
    Kana

    C.
    Punctuation

    D.
    Symbols

    E.
    Roman

    F.
    Numerals

  5. Choose an option from the Units pop‑up menu to specify the unit used for font attributes: % or Q.
  6. Set font attributes for the selected category of characters. Some attributes are not available for certain categories.
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    Font attributes

    A.
    Font Family

    B.
    Font Style

    C.
    Size

    D.
    Baseline

    E.
    Vertical Scale

    F.
    Horizontal Scale

    G.
    Scale at Center

  7. To view a sample of the composite font, click Show Sample.

    You can change the sample in the following ways:

    • Click the buttons on the right side of the sample to show or hide lines indicating the ICF Box , Embox , Baseline , Cap Height , Max Ascent/Descent , Max Ascender , and x‑height .

    • Choose a magnification level from the Zoom pop‑up menu.

  8. Click Save to save the settings for the composite font, and then click OK.

Categories of characters in composite fonts

Kanji
The base font of the composite font. The size and baseline for other characters are set according to the sizes and baselines specified here.

Kana
The font used for hiragana and katakana characters.

Punctuation
The font used for punctuation.

Symbols
The font used for symbols.

Roman
The font used for half-width roman characters.

Numbers
The font used for half-width numbers. This is usually a roman font.

Font attributes for composite fonts

Font Family And Style
The font used for the characters.

Size
The size of the characters in relation to the size of kanji characters. The size may differ for different fonts, even when the same font size is used.

Baseline
The position of the baseline in relation to the baseline for kanji characters.

Vertical And Horizontal Scale
The degree to which characters are scaled. You can scale kana characters, half-width katakana characters, gaiji characters, half-width roman characters, and numbers.

Scale At Center
Scaling for kana characters. When this option is selected, characters are scaled from the center. When this option is deselected, characters are scaled from the roman baseline.
To specify the same transformation scale for all characters, specify a value for Size and fix the value for scale at 100%. To have a different character transformation scale for horizontal and vertical, fix Size at 100%, and set Scale.