5

I'm working with Chinese text in TextEdit as a plain text .txt file.

This is what a normal line looks like: (and the style that my text document basically looks like)

none

𨃅𨃅 bai1 bai1 [pai⁵⁵ pai⁵⁵] (名) 瘸子、跛子。

this is a weird one:

some

𨃅𨃅儿端公——坐地使法 bai1 ber1 duan1 gong1——zo4 di4 si3 fa2 [pai⁵⁵ pər⁵⁵ tuan⁵⁵ koŋ⁵⁵ ——tso²¹³ ti²¹³ sɿ⁵³ fa²¹] (歇) 𨃅𨃅儿即瘸子、跛子之类的人士。端公即男巫。𨃅𨃅儿端公只好坐地使法。运用中指不亲自出面就在背后使用阴谋诡计。

I'm not sure why black text is suddenly looking kind of grey and thin - punctuation marks are likewise looking a little worse for the wear.

I think it may have something to do with the fact that I'm using a Unicode extension-B character (which may be using Hanazono font) giving everything behind it a weird look but I'm not sure. Also, this is plain text, I'm not really sure what could be interfering with it - but it's really starting to bug me. (it looks so nasty).

What can I do to fix my weird looking lines?

Improve this question
3
  • Please post the actual text as well as the image, so we can duplicate the problem without retrying.
    – Tom Gewecke
    Commented May 28, 2017 at 23:13
  • Have you tried selecting the text and trying different fonts? You may need to find one with all your characters to get uniform display,
    – Tom Gewecke
    Commented May 28, 2017 at 23:17
  • @TomGewecke Added text to OP.
    – Mou某
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 10:39

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

I have so far only found one font which has all the characters -- Babelstone Han. Try downloading that and switching the whole text to it.

Another possibility may be the MingLiu series of fonts that come with Word.

Of course plain text does not contain font info, so you are at the mercy of the the app and the OS regarding the fonts chosen, which will never be Babelstone Han unless this is installed and stipulated via rich text. In plain text I think you will always be stuck with two fonts which are unlikely to be identical in their display.

I notice, however, that your text above seems very even as displayed in my Safari. I wonder what font it is using.

Improve this answer
7
  • Another possible font is Hanazono split into HanaMinA and HanaMinB
    – Mou某
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 16:06
  • I guess my question also is asking why one font affects an entire line in TextEdit and not just the specific characters themselves
    – Mou某
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 16:08
  • @user3306356 I was not aware of the Hanazono series -- interesting. But as they are Japanese, they may have the Japanese hanzi variations instead of those for Chinese, I don't know.
    – Tom Gewecke
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 16:31
  • @user3306356 Good question about TextEdit behavior when fonts are not specified. I don't know why it does that or if there is any way to find out. Does it seem to be ok if you do specify a font with all the characters?
    – Tom Gewecke
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 16:33
  • If I specify HanaMinA for everything it looks all like my second "weird" picture - so yeah definitely a font issue.
    – Mou某
    Commented May 31, 2017 at 2:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .