[XeTeX] simple font installation question

[Andrew Moschou]

Dan,

 To install a font to your computer, go to C:\WINDOWS\fonts, then File
 > Install New Font... But this is not enough to make the font seen by
 XeTeX, you must also run "fc-cache" at the command prompt. It is also
 possible to use fonts without installing them into the Windows font
 folder, see fontspec's ExternalLocation feature or you can put them in
 another folder that is searched by fc-cache.

 Chinese fonts can be easily searched using terms e.g. "下载" (download)
 "字库" (font) or Foundry names like "方正" (FangZheng). The best sites are
 in Chinese (naturally). The first hit Google gave me is <a
 href="http://www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/edv/sinopc/chinese_fonts.htm">here</a>
 and this has a link to <a
 href="http://www.sj00.com/sort/2_1.htm">here</a>.

 I would be very surprised if there exists a Chinese font that doesn't
 include bopomofo and pinyin. You can type the characters directly into
 your file and they will be understood. Do you have a keyboard layout
 or some other input method that will type e.g. pinyin tones? As for a
 font that has pinyin or bopomofo built into each character, I'm not
 sure such fonts exist. I don't know how to manually do Ruby text
 (which is what this is).

 Specialised fonts that have dashed strokes I imagine are very rare,
 again if they exist! Such effects can be achieved by working in some
 graphic editing software like Illustrator. Really, after students
 learn a few dozen characters, they will have developed a Chinese
 handwriting technique and these pedagogical methods are abandoned,
 which would not justify designing an entire font of many thousands of
 characters in this way. The technique I have seen in practice books
 have the characters printed lightly in its square divided into 4
 smaller squares so they can be easily traced.

 As far as I know, all fonts will be embedded in the PDF. The size
 increase by embedding a new font depends on the number of characters
 (and their complexities) that are used. Don't worry a lot about file
 size, the PDFs will still be relatively small.

 There are packages that can be used to help with Chinese typesetting,
 zhspacing, for example. Other people might discuss them. It has been a
 couple of years since I last typed a Chinese document (Before I began
 to use LaTeX!), so I would be of limited help there.


 Andrew