…Adobe were to host a font-development workshop in Japan, with a focus on leveraging specific AFDKO tools to simplify the effort needed to develop OpenType Japanese fonts? Tools, such as tx, mergeFonts, rotateFont, autohint, and stemHist, immediately come to mind. While there are currently no concrete plans in place, if there were to be sufficient demand for such an event, along with suggestions for specific topics to be covered, a tentative agenda could be produced.
Until such an event is scheduled and actually takes place, Adobe Tech Note #5900 (AFDKO Version 2.0 Tutorial: mergeFonts, rotateFont & autohint), which includes a Japanese translation, should prove to be useful. This document is included in AFDKO as part of its documentation, but its link is provided above for convenience.
I encourage anyone with an interest in attending such a workshop, to be held in Japan, to post comments that include suggestions for topics to be covered.
どうぞ自由に日本語で書いて下さい。
Comments
ぜひ開催してください。OpenTypeフォントの正しい理解のためにも大変有用な催しになると思います。実現すれば必ず出席します。
CJK制作についての記事やワークショップの申し出をしてくださってありがとうございます。
日本では最近和文書体制作の気運が徐々にたかまりつつあるようですが、制作ツールが日本語制作ではなく欧文制作用のものがほとんどなため、AFDKO等を使わないと和文制作ができず、難しいと感じる人もいるようです。大手フォントベンダーはエンジニアを抱えており、オリジナルのツールや制作工程を開発しているようですので、このようなワークショップは興味を持っているかどうかは分かりませんが、私のようなフリーランスをはじめ、書体制作を始めた学生などは和文書体制作プロセスが分からず、このようなワークショップが開催されないかと思っていました。AFDKOはTwitterでも話題に上るので、徐々に知られつつあります。ちょうど勉強会を自分たちで開催しようと思っていたので、Adobeさんが行ってくれるというのであればありがたく、ぜひ参加したいと思います。
興味がある内容は、
「合成フォント」で使うことができる仮名フォントの作り方
かずらきのようなプロポーショナルフォントの制作方法、Adobe-Identity-0とは何か？
また、一般的なAdobe-Japanとの違い。
基本的なOpenTypeテーブル、特にBASEやOS/2等で重要な言語設定などのパラメーターやオプション。
Adobeさんが行っている品質管理、テストの方法。
普段日本語フォント用の欧文を制作していますので、例えばAdobe-Japanに無いスモールキャップやオーナメントなどを一般の和文フォントに組み込んでも良いか？
よろしくお願いいたします。
Thanks so much for your recent articles on building CJK fonts and proposal to provide a workshop. They are very helpful.
Recently in Japan, designers and students are getting interested in making Japanese font and try to do it, but some of them seem to think that it is very hard to build a JP font unlike making a Latin font because almost of font design tools are not for Japanese but Latin, then it is unable to build Japanese font without using AFDKO. Major font foundries have engineers and usually develop original tools and process, so I’m not sure if they are interested in this workshop, but freelancers like me and students who have just started making fonts don’t understand a process and tips to make a Japanese font with AFDKO. So we have been hoping that Adobe provides the AFDKO workshop in Japan. AFDKO is getting popular for JP type designers and developers even beginners because AFDKO topics often become *hot* on the Twitter timeline. And we have been thinking to have an AFDKO study session by ourself, so we are very glad and attend it if Adobe would host a workshop.
I’m curious about the followings.
How to make a Kana font to combine with existing JP full font using 合成フォント in Adobe apps.
How to make a proportional JP font like Kazuraki, and the details of the Adobe-Identity-0 and the difference with a normal AJ character format.
OpenType tables, especially basic tables like BASE or OS/2 and important parameters and options like language system settings when using fonts with Adobe applications.
Adobe’s quality evaluation process for Japanese font.
And as a type designer to make a Latin part for Japanese font.
Can I put SmallCaps or special characters like ornaments which isn’t included in AJ characters into JP fonts?
Best regards.
Many thanks for your detailed comments and suggestions. I can answer some of your questions:
There are two balances to be struck for kana fonts. On one end of the balance is including all of the glyphs that are necessary for InDesign’s Composite Font feature, in terms of kana coverage. On the other end is including enough additional glyphs so that the font is useful when used stand-alone. The “Kana Subset Definitions” section that is on page 6 of Adobe Tech Note #5078 (The Adobe-Japan1-6 Character Collection) provides details about this particular issue.
While most of these details are encapsulated in Adobe Tech Note #5901 (Special-Purpose OpenType Japanese Font Tutorial: Kazuraki), which includes Japanese (和文) and Chinese (中文) translations, though I can see how conveying these details in a workshop would also be of benefit.
I agree that these would be useful topics to cover, mainly in terms of providing recommended values.
Another excellent topic.
The best solution for this case, until such glyphs are added to future Supplement of Adobe-Japan1-x (note that small caps are among the candidate glyphs for Supplement 7), is to simply use the special-purpose Adobe-Identity-0 ROS.
開催してください！ケンさんのお話ききたいです！
> 基本的なOpenTypeテーブル、特にBASEやOS/2等で重要な言語設定などのパラメーターやオプション。
知りたい！
cmapについてや、OTFの各テーブルがどう関連しあっているのか、などもお聞きしたいです！