[How-to] Make Japanese fonts in XP look nicer...

[kakunou]

For a while, I've noticed that the default Japanese font in XP looks quite ugly, both in XP-J and XP-E. Text on the taskbar, titlebar, icons...and so on. I went a'Googling earlier this evening, and found out why - because Windows doesn't play nice with ClearType for some reason (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=51799). [channel9.msdn.com]

After spending a bit more time on Google, I came up with these pages:
http://www.geocities.jp/poe99/CAT/XP/page06/
http://tomtia.plala.jp/PC/ttfont/

The basic idea is to split the original font file (msgothic.ttc) into its three parts, modify them, rebuild into a new copy of msgothic.ttc, and replace the original with the modified. Things look a lot nicer now. The only real side effect that I've seen with doing this is that some kanji gets squished. -_- The channel9.msdn.com forum link should have an example of this effect when ClearType is enabled.

Quick example of difference:
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/temp/msgothicfix.jpg)]

I thought I'd post this in case it bothered anyone else. I'd write this post in...you know. But I'd rather not risk embarassing myself with some minor grammatical error, seeing as how I sometimes complain about how other people can't write in proper English. Oh, well. -_-

[Ninkazu]

I just downloaded 200 different Japanese fonts, heh.

[painsama]

I just downloaded 200 different Japanese fonts, heh.

Where did you get it. Links please... :o

[Ninkazu]

I got it from Suprnova when it was still up. Sorry.

::EDIT::
I have 61 fonts that installed properly so I'm archiving those right now to upload. It's going to be about 200mb though so be patient.

::EDIT 2::
Turned out to be 125mb. I'll have it uploaded in about 45 minutes.

[kakunou]

Eh, no one even cares about the original topic of this thread.

-_-

[Ninkazu]

http://www.venosoft.com/uploads/japanese_fonts.rar
125.6mb

Sorry kakunou, I didn't mean to hijack your thread.

[painsama]

Eh, no one even cares about the original topic of this thread.

-_-

It's not like that. We DO care. But... Can you give simple (detailed) explanation on how to do that since, er..., look at the pages. Ah. Kanjis. And "Ahhh..." or "I can't understand these technical terms!"

(Well most of the time I use Linux, which render the fonts really well. But I really bother when seeing ugly japanese fonts in Windows).

And thanks Ninkazu for the fonts. It sure took sometime to upload the file to the server. I've been looking for the fonts for months (I'm not that good at japanese, so going though japanese sites for fonts are quite troublesome for me.)

[koreanwalker]

after looking at a few of the shots from those sites i agree that, wow, it really DOES need some work.

do you have any idea whether or not this font problem extends anywhere outside of just the windows menus?

also, as painsama mentioned, those sites are pretty difficult to read for one without a lot of experence =/

[kakunou]

0. Create a working directory to store working files (e.g. C:\font). Install TTEdit (http://musashi.or.tv/ttedit.htm). Download TTSDK (http://osakattf.hp.infoseek.co.jp/) and extract makettf.exe to the previously created directory.

1. This is how things appear before the font is modified (ClearType enabled).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/01_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/01.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/01.png)]

2. Open TTEdit.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/02_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/02.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/02.png)]

3. Select the original copy of msgothic.ttc on the left. Choose an output file name and directory on the right. Options that must be selected are shown below.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/03_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/03.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/03.png)]

4. Select a font to be exported.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/04_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/04.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/04.png)]

5. Repeat the process for ＭＳ Ｐゴシック and MS UI Gothic, saving each with different file names, such as font02.ttf and font03.ttf.

6. Edit the .ttf headers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/05_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/05.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/05.png)]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/06_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/06.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/06.png)]

7. Use the following values for the .ttf file to which they correspond to: ＭＳ ゴシック / MS Gothic
ＭＳ Ｐゴシック / MS PGothic
MS UI Gothic / MS UI Gothic

8. Combine the modified .ttf files to create a new copy of msgothic.ttc.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/07_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/07.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/07.png)]

9. Rename the unmodified font as a precautionary measure. Copy the newly-created font to the Fonts directory.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/08_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/08.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/08.png)]

10. Restart your computer. Enable ClearType if you haven't already.

11. This is how things appear after the font is modified (ClearType enabled).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/thumb/09_tn.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/09.png)
[link (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v361/kakunou/msgothic/full/09.png)]

[koreanwalker]

english! thanks a ton kakunou

[Yatsuha]

you should use the font meiryou

[Shinreineko]

Awesome, looks great. Thanks for the walkthrough Kakunou, without one I would have never figured this out.