Posted by craftyjon on Feb 21, 2021; 2:50pm
URL: https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/CJK-support-in-PDF-state-of-the-art-tp8529.html

Hi all,

I'm working on a project to move a translated documentation package to
asciidoctor (hi Marco!)

We need PDF output support with CJK characters, and I've hit a dead
end trying to get this to work.

It seems like back in 2015 this was solved by Rei's work on
asciidoctor-pdf-cjk-kai_gen_gothic, but this package is no longer
maintained and the font KaiGen Gothic seems to not be widely available
anymore, so this option seems to not be a good idea.

I assumed that using Noto Serif CJK would be a good path, as this font
family looks good, has an appropriate license, and has lots of
characters supported.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to make it work with
asciidoctor-pdf.  As it seems like people have noted before on other
threads, it causes ttfunk to crash.

I have tried various things suggested in the asciidoctor-pdf
documentation for "repairing" the font in FontForge, however FontForge
seems to have trouble dealing with this font, and none of the steps
suggested in the docs result in a font that ttfunk can use.

So, before I get into the weeds with any of the particulars of getting
Noto Serif to work, I ask the community: is anyone generating PDFs
with CJK characters using anything other than the (now-unsupported)
KaiGen Gothic gem and an openly-licensed font?  If so, can you please
advise which font you used and if you had to do any magic steps to get
ttfunk to accept it?

Best,
Jon