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Come up with a definition of 全角 that are generic enough to cover non-square typefaces #35

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kidayasuo opened this issue Oct 31, 2023 · 6 comments

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@kidayasuo
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kidayasuo commented Oct 31, 2023

In the JLReq documentation, the term '全角 (Zenkaku)' has traditionally been used under the assumption that all characters are square-shaped and of uniform size. However, this definition becomes problematic when generalizing to scenarios where characters are rectangular and/or vary in size between kanji and kana. The overloading of 'Zenkaku' needs to be resolved in order to generalize the layout descriptions to cover these fonts. Examples of such fonts are ones used for newspapers, Morisawa Shingo Condensed, MS P Mincho/Gothic, and AXIS Condensed.

There have been discussions on the JLReq TF mailing list. This GH issue captures the conclusion up to this point and serves as a record for further discussion.

The proposed definition reflects the expected width for “Zenkaku Aki (one em space)”. Other typical use of ‘Zenkaku’ includes width of characters (which now varies), and line advance width.

@kidayasuo kidayasuo changed the title Come up with a definition of 全角 Come up with a definition of 全角 that are generic enough to cover non-square typefaces Oct 31, 2023
@kidayasuo
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The agreement so far is to use the width of U+3000 FULLWIDTH SPACE. This encompasses its use on typefaces that has different advance width between Kanji and Kana, such as Window's MS P Mincho/Gothic and AXIS Condensed. With these examples the width of the FULLWIDTH SPACE is narrower than width of Kanji. In case of AXIS Condensed it matches with the width of Kana, and in case of MS P fonts where Kana is proportional the width is again closer to width of Kana. Using FULLWIDTH SPACE allows typeface designers to specify the width of Zenkaku independently from the width of Kanji.

As FULLWIDTH SPACE is used to indent paragraphs and for some other spacing purposes, most likely the width of this character reflects the designer's intention for the width of Zenkaku used for the particular typeface.

With that said, the term "Zenkaku" is used in many places / ways in describing layout, and the actual width required might be different in each case when the typeface has different advance width between Kanji and Kana. Further research would be necessary to re-define Zenkaku and make the layout description more generic.

@KobayashiToshi
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KobayashiToshi commented Nov 4, 2023 via email

@KobayashiToshi
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KobayashiToshi commented Nov 4, 2023 via email

@kidayasuo kidayasuo transferred this issue from w3c/jlreq Nov 4, 2023
@kidayasuo
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kidayasuo commented Nov 5, 2023

敏先生、レポジトリは移動しました。全角アキの例、ありがとうございます。これらのうち、全角では広すぎるかな、、という例もありそうですね。最近話題になった分かち書きはその例ですね。他にありますか?

それとは別に、AXIS Condensed のデザイナーや、もし他のフォントの例が見つかればそのデザイナーに、上記の例をベースに、全角空白の幅やその意図についてヒアリングしてみるのも良いかもしれませんね。

@KobayashiToshi
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KobayashiToshi commented Nov 5, 2023 via email

@kidayasuo
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分かち書きは,全角アキか,それともまったく違うものか,という問題なので,ここでの問題とは別のように思う.

確かにおっしゃる通り。それが全角アキであるべきか違うものであるべきか、の議論は、全角アキの大きさがどうあるべきか、とは別個の問題ですね。

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