Mojikumi and Kinsoku overview for Japanese text formatting

Mojikumi and Kinsoku control the spacing between Japanese characters, punctuation, and Latin text in Japanese layouts. It ensures consistent spacing and helps maintain visual balance across lines of text.

Mojikumi defines rules for Japanese text composition, including spacing between Japanese and Roman characters, punctuation, special characters, and numbers, as well as line start and end behavior. It also controls paragraph indents.

Illustrator provides predefined Mojikumi sets based on Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS X 4051-1995), which you can apply to your text.

You can also create custom Mojikumi sets to adjust frequently used spacing rules, such as spacing between punctuation or around parentheses, to match specific layout needs.

Kinsoku Shori adjusts line breaks according to Japanese typesetting rules to prevent characters from appearing at inappropriate positions at the beginning or end of a line (e.g., preventing punctuation from appearing at the start of a line). It consists of three controls:

• Line Start Kinsoku, which controls characters at the beginning of a line.
• Line End Kinsoku, which controls characters at the end of a line.
• Separation Prohibition, which prevents certain characters from being separated across lines.

These rules can be saved as Kinsoku sets, allowing you to apply the same rules consistently.  

Illustrator provides three types of Kinsoku sets: 

• Hard Kinsoku: Used for strict typesetting, such as body text.
• Soft Kinsoku: Does not apply Kinsoku rules to certain characters, such as the long vowel mark (ー) and small kana (ぁ, ぃ, etc.), making it more suitable for flexible layouts like headings or short text.
• Soft Kinsoku v2: Used for short-form content such as web and video. This set is based on Soft Kinsoku, with additional Kinsoku characters defined. 

You can use the default sets or customize them by adding or removing Kinsoku characters. Additionally, you can also fine-tune text layouts by combining Kinsoku Shori with Burasagari (hanging punctuation) and Push in/Push out (character spacing adjustments) available from the Paragraph panel flyout menu. 

Mojikumi adjusts spacing between characters, while Kinsoku controls where lines break. Using both ensures that Japanese text remains visually balanced and follows standard typesetting conventions.