Questions on future CJK fonts

[NightFurySL2001]

I would like to ask about the status of CJK fonts in the future.

1. What glyphs and encoding standards will the fonts follow? For example, Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao/Inherited Glyphs/Standard Form of National Characters/JIS 20014 for glyphs standard and GB18030/Big5/JIS X 0208 for encoding standard .
2. Will IBM Plex adds both sans serif (or Gothic, 黑体) and serif (or Ming/Song, 明／宋体) font in the future?
3. Will IBM Plex KR add hanja into the fonts as per KS X 1001 and KS X 1002?
4. Will IBM Plex CJK be combined into one font like Source Han Sans/Source Han Serif? There will be a few constrains if the same technology is to be used (i.e. 65535 glyph limit).
5. What font foundries/individuals will be involved for the production of CJK fonts?
6. Will the CJK font files be released with overlapping or no overlapping? It seems that IBM Plex KR is released with overlapping.

Thanks in advance.

[mjabbink]

@NightFurySL2001

1. Plex CJK fonts follow each Adobe character collection. Plex Japanese follows Adobe Japan 1-3, Plex Traditional Chinese follow Adobe CNS 1-7 that supports CNS 11643 Planes 1 and2, Big5, HKGCCS, and HKSCS. Plex Simplified Chinese is yet to develop but will start from Adobe GB1-0 that supports GB2312-80 and GB1988-89. And later, a wider range of glyphs can be updated as an additional supplement to guarantee usability.

2. For the first release of CJK we will only have low contrast versions.

3. No plans for KR hanja yet. The development of JP, TC, and SC basic standards are the priority through 2022, and the development of the additional supplement depends on its necessity (Plex Sans JP will hopefully be released in April 2021).

4. As you stated, there are technical constraints to combine CJK fonts, so we don’t have plans for an integrated font for now. We are focusing to optimize the font for each script.

5. We are working with Sandoll on design and production of IBM Plex CJK with collaboration with designers from JP, TC, and SC-using area.

6. The source file will be released with overlapping.

[mjabbink]

Closing for now.

[NightFurySL2001]

@mjabbink Thank you for your reply.

1. What would be the orthography standard (字形标准) for the TC version? I think that the SC orthography would be following the Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao while the JP orthography will have both kyujitai and shinjitai. What will the TC orthography be following?

2. I would actually say that support for GB/T 2312-1980 and GB/T 1988-1998 is deemed not enough for modern daily use of SC.
   I propose that SC version should use the range of GB/T 2312-1980 in conjunction of either Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao (现代汉语通用字表) (7000 characters) and/or Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao (2013 version, 通用规范汉字表) (8105 characters). These 2 standards are developed later than GB/T 2312-1980 (which obviously is from 1980) and should contain enough characters for modern daily usage, with the Tongyong Guifan Hanzibiao even providing support to (almost) all the words in Periodic Table (except element 116, 117, 118 which was determined last year).
   On the other hand, GB/T 1988-1998 is not submitted to Unicode AFAIK and it may contain characters that are not in the current Unicode encoding even in the latest CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G. It is definitely not suitable to be used as a modern character set standard.

3. Will additional symbols be supported such as pinyin and bopomofo? I would really hope that the bopomofo has a higher quality than what Source Han Sans to offer in its earlier version…

[NightFurySL2001]

@mjabbink I saw the issue of https://github.com/IBM/plex/issues/346 recently and I'd like to voice support for them for the use of traditional orthography in IBM Plex CJK TC version. Please consider using the traditional orthography for the following reasons:

1. Traditional orthography is more formal and fits the overall design of IBM Plex better. This is due to the traditional orthography has a long history and refinement of human process on the printed characters and the refinement of printed type to digital world what the IBM Plex font is doing. The traditional orthography is better suited to carry the timeless-ness of IBM Plex and representing the IBM corporation as a formal and timeless business. Also, IBM systems deployed in the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau uses traditional orthography.
2. Using traditional orthography can cut down the time needed by TC font by ~25% as most glyphs of traditional ortography can be found in JP kanji of font too. Also, some of the design can be ported from SC more easily compared to the use of Standard Form of National Characters and less time will be required to design new glyphs from the ground up.
3. Using traditional orthography can also save resources to make localized versions of CJK TC fonts for different areas (eg. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau). Traditional orthography is widely recognised as the de facto style alongside educational orthography in respective areas. Using traditional orthography for Traditional Chinese version of IBM Plex can prevent wastage of time and cost on localizing for each educational standard, instead just one traditional orthography font can be used in marketing in all Traditional Chinese areas, reaching the most widespread audience/market with minimal cost.

[NightFurySL2001]

Also, HKGCCS and HKSCS have a larger character set but it may not contain all glyphs needed by daily Hong Kong uses while containing some that are not used daily. A suggested set could be HKGCCS + Suppchara that is more organized and has fewer glyphs than HKSCS.

[johnnyshields]

@mjabbink may we ask:

• a comment on the choice of orthography for TC (also asked in #346)
• an update on the latest ETA for JP, TC, and SC releases

[mjabbink]

JP to be released in April 2021. TC Nd SC are delayed and no time estimates at the moment.

[roytam1]

JP to be released in April 2021.

for recording/filing, JP is released yesterday (i.e. 2021-07-24). so it is ~3 more months of delay.

[sandoll-inc]

IBM PLEX TC is collaborating with designers from Taiwan, and Sandoll considers PLEX in respect of local designers and users.

Therefore, TC has been made based on printing type styles after 70's rather than the official orthographies of modern governments. DF Hei and Lanting Hei belong to this style.

Regarding Github issue #346, I had just talked to my colleague and I'd like to stick to the words that Plex TC design is based on finding a balance between traditional orthography and some good handwritten touches. Because that is what Plex is about. In the context of #346 discussion, our approach could be said "amalgam"

[NightFurySL2001]

Thank you sandoll for your reply. Is there any info on range coverage for SC and will Traditional Characters be included in IBM Plex SC?

[mjabbink]

@NightFurySL2001 WE will have both. So Plex CJK will follow the naming below

IBM Plex Sans TC IBM Plex Sans SC

IBM Plex Sans KR IBM Plex Sans JP

[NightFurySL2001]

@mjabbink No, to clarify, the question is will SC version covers Traditional Chiense characters such as in GB/T 12345 or GBK in the future? GB 2312 will only cover the most of most basic Simplified Chinese characters that might not even be enough for modern day usage (such as 啰 and 瞭 is not in GB 2312).

[mjabbink]

FYI @sandoll-inc

[sandoll-inc]

First of all, we are about to develop Adobe GB1-0 which is the most minimal specification. Also, we are well aware that this specification does not meet the needs of SC users.

So we've been discussing plans to expand SC specs for a long time. Any plans are still up in the air, one of them is to add 《通用规范汉字表》 glyphs that are not included in the specifications.

We will do our best to make fonts that people can use conveniently. Thank you for your continued interest in the IBM Plex CJK project.

[Marcus98T]

~Not to be ignorant, but I was thinking, was Traditional Chinese supposed to be released next, then Simplified Chinese? Are there any changes or delays which mean that Simplified Chinese is going to be released next instead?~

On the 6.0.1 release page it says:

[Unreleased]

• IBM Plex Sans CN

I know there won't be any definite release date as of now (May 2022), but my impression is Simplified Chinese is getting closer to release but Traditional Chinese is still in quite a long development.

On second thought, maybe it's because Simplified Chinese only have like roughly 8500 CJK characters to review, compared to about 17000 CJK characters for Traditional Chinese.

UPDATE: I did not see this coming, as I failed to notice a tweet from December 2021 showing the characters of the upcoming Simplified Chinese font. ~Oh well, Traditional Chinese users will have to wait a lot longer.~

UPDATE 2022-11-25: Now we have an estimated release date of Q3 2023 for both Traditional and Simplified Chinese, I think it's implied that they are going to have a simultaneous release, and that should be more fair.

[jerviscui]

I wish I could use it sooner.

[Marcus98T]

It's May 2023 as of this writing, I think well, we are facing the longest of delays for Chinese. As we know the project is pushed back several times, from mid-2022, to Q3 2023 and now Q1 2024. As I said before, the Plex website (https://www.ibm.com/plex/languages/) still says 2023 for the Chinese release date and still has not been revised.

Is there any progress for the SC and TC versions? And is there a current binding non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for which the glyphs for Traditional Chinese cannot be shown yet until a certain point in time, even in sample form? We already had a sample for the Simplified Chinese version back in December 2021 as mentioned before.

[Marcus98T]

Speaking of testing in other irrelevant issues, at this point, I don't know if IBM will allow anyone to test Plex Sans SC and TC. Maybe they're not even close to complete to warrant testing.

[mjabbink]

@Marcus98T The Chinese fonts are in their final phase. We can probably make some font files to supply here for external testing. I’ll look into this.