On this page
- Display Asian type options
- Set Asian OpenType font attributes
- Replace Asian characters with a different glyph form
- Specify how leading is measured in Asian type
- Rotate half-width characters in vertical text
- Use tate-chu-yoko
- Use aki
- Use warichu
- Align Asian characters with mojisoroe
- Use mojikumi
- Use kinsoku
- Specify a burasagari option
- Use kurikaeshi moji shori
Illustrator provides a variety of options for formatting Asian characters. For example, you can set Asian Open Type font attributes, use tate-chu-yoko, aki, warichu, mojisoroe, mojikumi, kinsoku, burasagari, and kurikaeshi moji shori. In addition, you can combine Asian and roman fonts and create composite fonts.
Note:
To enable support for GB18030 fonts for Simplified Chinese in Windows XP, see the Readme file in the Illustrator CS5\Simplified Chinese\Goodies\Optional Extensions\GB18030 folder.
By default, Illustrator hides Asian type options in the Character panel, Paragraph panel, OpenType panel, and Type menu.
Note:
Your operating system must support the languages in which you wish to work. Consult your system software manufacturer for more information.
Asian OpenType fonts may include a number of features that aren’t available in current PostScript and TrueType fonts. In addition, Asian OpenType fonts provide alternate glyphs for many characters.
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Choose an option from the Glyphs panel menu. If you don’t see the following options, select Show Asian Options in the Type preferences. If an option is dimmed, the glyph form is not available for the current font:
Monospaced Half-Width Forms
Changes the glyphs of the selected Latin characters to monospace hankaku (half width).
Monospaced Third-Width Forms
Changes the glyphs of the selected Latin characters to monospace third width.
Monospaced Quarter-Width Forms
Changes the glyphs of the selected Latin characters to monospace quarter width.
Tip: To revert an alternate glyph to its default form, select it and choose Revert To Default Forms from the Glyphs panel menu. You cannot use this method to revert alternate glyphs that were applied using a character style.
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bottom-to-bottom leadingtop-to-top leadingleading in Asian typeAsian type:leading inTop-to-top Leading
Measures the spacing between lines of type from the top of one line to the top of the next line. When you use top‑to‑top leading, the first line of type in a paragraph is aligned flush with the top of the bounding box.
Bottom-to-bottom Leading
For horizontal type, measures the space between lines of type from the type baseline. When you use bottom-to-bottom leading, space appears between the first line of type and the bounding box. A check mark indicates which option is selected.
note: The leading option you choose does not affect the amount of leading between lines, only how the leading is measured.
The direction of half-width characters, such as roman text or numbers, changes in vertical text. By default, half-width characters are rotated individually.
If you don’t want half-width characters to rotate, deselect Standard Vertical Roman Alignment from the Character panel menu.
Tate-chu-yoko (also called kumimoji and renmoji) is a block of horizontal type laid out within vertical type lines. Using tate-chu-yoko makes it easier to read half-width characters such as numbers, dates, and short foreign words in vertical text.
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Left/Right
Specifies a positive value to move the text to the right and a negative value to move it to the left.
Tip: Use tsume or tracking in the Character panel to adjust the character spacing for tate-chu-yoko.
note: If the Tate-chu-yoko option isn’t showing, you need to select Show Asian Options in the Type preferences.
Aki is the white space before or after a character. Usually, fixed spacing is applied between the characters based on the mojikumi setting for a paragraph. You can change the mojikumi setting for special characters using the Insert Aki options in the Character panel. For example, to add a space before an opening parenthesis, use the Insert Aki (Left) option.
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Select the characters you want to adjust with the Type tool, and do any of the following in the Character panel:
To add aki before or after a character, choose the amount of aki you want to add from the Insert Aki (Left)
or Insert Aki (Right) 
menu in the Character panel. For example, if you specify 2bu, half a full-width space is added, and if you specify 4bu, a quarter of a full-width space is added.To compress the aki between characters, specify a percentage for Tsume
. The higher the percentage, the narrower the aki between characters.
Note:
If you don’t see the Insert Aki or Tsume options, select Show Asian Options in the Type preferences.
Character without tsume (left) compared to character with tsume (right)
The Warichu option in the Character panel decreases the typeface size of selected text to a percentage of the original and stacks the type—horizontally or vertically, according to the orientation—on multiple lines.
Mojisoroe is the alignment of characters in Asian type. When a line of text contains different sizes of characters, you can specify how to align text to the largest characters in the line: to the top, center, or bottom of the em box (right, center, and left for vertical frames), to the roman baseline, or to the top or bottom of the ICF box (right or left for vertical frames). ICF (Ideographic Character Space) is the average height and width used by the font designer to design the ideographic characters which comprise a font.
A. Small characters aligned to the bottom B. Small characters aligned to the center C. Small characters aligned to the top
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Em box Top/Right, Em box Center, or Em box Bottom/Left
Aligns the small characters in a line to the specified position of the large character’s em box. In vertical text frames, Em box Top/Right aligns the text to the right of the em box, and Em box Bottom/Left aligns the text to the left of the em box.
Mojikumi specifies Japanese text composition for spacing of Japanese characters, roman characters, punctuation, special characters, line start, line end, and numbers. You can also specify paragraph indents.
The existing character spacing rules in Illustrator follow the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) specification, JISx4051‑1995. You can select from the predefined mojikumi sets provided by Illustrator.
Furthermore, you can create specific mojikumi sets. In a new mojikumi set, you can edit the settings for spacing that you use a lot, such as the spacing between a period and subsequent opening parenthesis. For example, you might create an interview format in which you want to have an em dash before a question, and answers enclosed in parentheses.
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None Turns off the use of mojikumi.
YakumonoHankaku mojikumi setYakumonoHankaku Uses half-width spacing for punctuation.
GyoumatsuYakumonoHankaku mojikumi setGyoumatsuYakumonoHankaku Uses full-width spacing for most characters except the last character in the line.
YakumonoHankaku (left) and GyoumatsuYakumonoHankaku (right)
GyoumatsuYakumonoZenkaku mojikumi setGyoumatsuYakumonoZenkaku Uses full-width spacing for most characters and the last character in the line.
YakumonoZenkaku mojikumi setYakumonoZenkaku Uses full-width spacing for punctuation.
GyoumatsuYakumonoZenkaku (left) and YakumonoZenkaku (right)
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Specify Desired, Minimum, and Maximum values for each option. The Minimum value is used to compress lines for kinsoku (specify a value less than the Desired value). The Maximum value is used to spread lines for fully justified text (specify a value greater than the Desired value).
Note:
Depending on the character type, you can specify the same values for Desired, Minimum, and Maximum if you don’t want to change the spacing.
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Note:
When you compose Japanese text with a lot of half-width spaces or roman parentheses, problems relating to text composition increase. We recommend that you avoid using roman parentheses, and use full-width parentheses for Japanese composition. Only use roman parentheses when using relatively long English sentences in Japanese text, or when a more serious problem results if you don’t use roman parentheses.
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To export a set, click Export, select a location for the file, type a filename, and click Save. Illustrator saves the file in MJK format.
To import a set, click Import, select an MJK file, and click Open.
To delete a set, choose it from the Mojikumi pop‑up menu and then click Delete. All the text to which the mojikumi set was applied will return to the default settings.
Note:
You cannot delete predefined mojikumi sets.
Kinsoku specifies line breaks for Japanese text. Characters that cannot be placed at the beginning or end of a line are known as kinsoku characters. Illustrator has hard kinsoku sets and soft kinsoku sets and Photoshop has weak and maximum sets. Soft or weak kinsoku sets omit long vowel symbols and small hiragana characters. You can use these existing sets, or add or delete kinsoku characters to create new sets.
You can also define hanging characters for hanging Japanese punctuation and define characters that cannot be split when a line is exceeded.
You can specify whether to push in or push out text so that kinsoku characters are not placed inappropriately.
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To export a kinsoku set, click Export. Select a location for the file, enter a filename, and click Save.
Illustrator saves the file in KSK format.
To import a kinsoku set, click Import. Select a KSK file, and click Open.
To delete a kinsoku set, choose the kinsoku set you want to delete from the pop‑up menu. Then click Delete Set.
note: You cannot delete predefined kinsoku settings.
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From the Paragraph panel menu, choose Kinsoku Shori Type and then choose one of the following methods:
Push In First
Moves characters up to the previous line to prevent prohibited characters from ending or beginning a line.
Push Out First
Moves characters down to the next line to prevent prohibited characters from ending or beginning a line.
When Bunri-kinshi is selected, the characters specified in the Bunri-Kinshi section of the Kinsoku Shori Settings dialog box will not be split.
Burasagari lets single‑byte periods, double‑byte periods, single‑byte commas, and double‑byte commas fall outside the paragraph bounding box.
You can control how repeated characters in Japanese text are handled using the Kurikaeshi Moji Shori option in the Paragraph panel. By default, a repeat character mark is substituted for the second character when two identical characters follow one after the other in a body of text. When this option is selected, both characters are displayed if they are separated by a line break.
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