{"id":10123,"date":"2020-01-30T13:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.1stopasia.com\/?p=10123"},"modified":"2026-03-18T09:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T09:49:11","slug":"about-chinese-fonts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.1stopasia.com\/blog\/about-chinese-fonts\/","title":{"rendered":"About Chinese Fonts"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to Chinese language, we don\u2019t need to quote numbers and statistics to convince someone that it\u2019s one of the most widely used languages in the world. Everyone knows that. It\u2019s a beautiful and fascinating language, and it looks so different than most western languages that we\u2019re used to.<\/p>\n

How many kinds of Chinese are there?<\/h2>\n

As we know, Chinese can be written with two different sets of characters \u2014 Traditional and Simplified. Both have character shapes that are roughly square, and each character has a monospaced square width, which forms clean grids no matter the direction the text is typed in.<\/p>\n

Simplified Chinese is mostly used in Mainland China, and it\u2019s been the official writing system there since 1954, while Traditional Chinese was used prior to 1954. Traditional Chinese is still used widely in Chinatowns outside of China, as well as in Hong-Kong, Taiwan and Macau, where it\u2019s the official written language. In Mainland China, it\u2019s used only in extremely formal cases. You can also find Traditional Chinese in other languages that have developed with influence from ancient Chinese.<\/p>\n

Writing Chinese language<\/h2>\n

Historically, Chinese was set vertically and was being read from top to bottom and from right to left. However, in the 50s \u2014 alongside the introduction of Simplified Chinese \u2014 it became standard to write in the Western style, from left to right and from top to bottom.<\/p>\n

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Nowadays, Chinese text is mostly read from left to right, the same as English. Because of the square monospaced nature of the characters, it works equally well both horizontally and vertically. This means that in artistic contexts, where blocks of texts are relatively short (like book covers, logos and signage), it\u2019s ok to get creative when it comes to how you layout characters without losing too much readability.<\/p>\n

Another significant characteristic of Chinese typography is the enormous variety of characters that are available. Without any exaggeration, there are literally thousands of them! The smallest standard Chinese font contains 6763 characters. A typical Chinese font file is usually at least 5MB in size and some of them can be over 20MB, which is problematic if you need it loaded on a website. That\u2019s the reason it takes so much time and effort to create a Chinese font, and it\u2019s also why Chinese fonts rarely have a variety of weights \u2014 unlike their European counterparts, which often have as many as five different weights.<\/p>\n

Chinese fonts<\/h2>\n

The two basic groups of Chinese fonts are songti (\u5b8b\u4f53), which you could think about as the Chinese serif, and heiti (\u9ed1\u4f53) \u2014 the Chinese version of sans serif, respectively. Additionally, there are decorative brush script fonts called kaiti (\u6977\u4f53).<\/p>\n

Songti (\u5b8b\u4f53)<\/h2>\n

If one type of font had to be chosen to represent Chinese typography, it would be the songti type. Early songti scripts were in use as far back as the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), when Chinese woodblock printing was in its golden age.<\/p>\n

Due to the grain of the wood in the woodblocks, which ran horizontally, horizontal lines were easy to produce and could be made thinner. Vertical lines, which ran counter to the wood grain, were prone to breakage during carving, and thus had to be made thicker. In addition, because the end points of the horizontal lines were easily worn away, flourishes were added to make them thicker, so they\u2019d last longer. This is how songti \u2014 the Chinese serif characterized by perfectly straight horizontal strokes, wider verticals, and classy but regimented flourishes \u2014 was born.<\/p>\n

The font Zhongyi Songti (\u4e2d\u6613\u5b8b\u4f53), or commonly known in English as SimSun, and its predecessor, New Songti (NSimsun \u2013 \u65b0\u5b8b\u4f53) is the Times New Roman of Simplified Chinese, made popular due to its out-of-the-box inclusion in Windows XP. The Simsun love affair continued until very recently: it was still the default Simplified Chinese input font in Windows 7 systems. Ask a Chinese web designer what makes an interface look \u201cChinese\u201d, and you\u2019ll often get a chuckle alongside the answer \u201cSimsun, 12pt\u201d \u2014 that should give you an idea of how widely this font was used.<\/p>\n

Examples for Songti fonts:<\/strong> SimSun, FZCuSong, NSimsun;<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Heiti (\u9ed1\u4f53)<\/h2>\n

The other major classification is the heiti, similar to \u201csans-serif\u201d. Heiti fonts are a relatively modern invention although they were seen emerging in commercial press around the early 1900\u2019s.<\/p>\n

SimHei was the standard sans-serif to SimSun\u2019s serif. Recently, Microsoft Yahei has started to replace SimHei as the preferred standard in web layouts, but there are still a couple of compatibility issues: MS YaHei was introduced in Windows Vista, but the number of machines still running Windows XP in China \u2014 even in 2020 \u2014 would blow your mind. So while everyone’s pretty tired of looking at SimHei, we haven\u2019t quite reached the point where people are willing to give it up completely just yet.<\/p>\n

Yuanti (\u5706\u4f53) is typically considered a subclass of Heiti (sans-serif). It\u2019s more of a search tag than a font type \u2014 the Chinese word yuan means \u201cround\u201d, and that\u2019s exactly what these are: sans-serif fonts with soft curves at the corners. Yuanti is popular in modern corporate collateral and advertising materials. There are no web-standard fonts here either.<\/p>\n

Examples for Heiti fonts:<\/strong> SimHei, Microsoft Yahei, Source Han Sans\/Noto Sans, Yuehei, Shanghei;<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Kaiti (\u6977\u4f53)<\/h2>\n

A kaiti font takes the shape of basic brush script lettering \u2014 or so called \u201cregular brush\u201d. A Kaiti font is still not a novelty font because it never gets overly flowery, yet it is constructed within certain parameters while maintaining an upright structure.<\/p>\n

Examples for Keiti fonts:<\/strong> Kaiti (or Biao Kaiti), FZKai, Adobe Kaiti Standard<\/p>\n

\"Kaiti\"<\/p>\n

Which fonts should you use?<\/h2>\n

We compiled a couple of convenient lists of fonts to choose from, according to your particular needs.<\/p>\n

The most popular Chinese web-safe fonts:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. \n
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    1. Heiti fonts:\n