(In typesetting, widows and orphans are words or text strings at the beginning or end of a paragraph, which are left dangling at the top or bottom of a column, separated from the rest of the paragraph.

Widows or orphans: Widow lines or orphan characters are not generally accepted by Chinese audiences, thus should be avoided throughout a document.

On the right hand side is the sample for not applying justified alignment, which isn’t as appealing to average Chinese audiences. The work sample below (on left hand) shows the justified alignment, which is suggested.

Justify alignment: Unlike English as well as some European languages Chinese DTP requires justified alignment for body paragraphs.Thus in order to achieve the similar layout as the original English document, adding the kerning slightly would be a good choice. Kerning: When translating from English into Chinese the text will contract instead of expand unlike some European languages.You may want to go ahead and use a smaller type size in this case for the Chinese version. There is not a tremendous difference in the body copy, but for larger headings or titles, the difference can be considerable. The Chinese characters however tend to be bigger than the English even in the same type size. Type size: It is common practice for a typesetter to use the same type size as the original English text in the localized Chinese version.For more detailed description about Chinese font selection, please refer to: How to Use Fonts for CCJK. However when working on a brochure, manual or poster, uses that really require professional DTP applications such as Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress etc., the choice of system fonts would be very limited. This would ensure the presentation be displayed correctly on any computer without corrupting the Chinese characters. When designing or localizing using common office applications for example, say a presentation in MS PowerPoint, it is suggested to use the system fonts. Font selection: Generally speaking there are 2 groups of fonts – system fonts and non-system fonts.

In this blog I will touch on some guidelines and best practices for Chinese Desktop Publishing. With Chinese being such an important and prevalent language of international commerce, creating documentation adhering to the highest standards for Chinese Desktop Publishing (DTP) becomes more and more important.

It follows that the need for Chinese DTP (typesetting or formatting) after a document is translated is a service need that is growing as well. Chinese has become one of the most translated languages among all other Asian languages.

Photoshop chinese font style