| WenQuanYi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Original author | Qianqian Fang |
| Developer | WenQuanYi Project Contributors |
| Initial release | October 2004; 21 years ago (2004-10) |
| Type | Computer font |
| License | GPL |
| Website | wenq |
WenQuanYi (simplified Chinese:文泉驿;traditional Chinese:文泉驛;pinyin:Wénquányì; aka:Spring of Letters) is anopen-source project of Chinesecomputer fonts licensed underGNU General Public License.
WenQuanYi project was started byQianqian Fang (Screen name: FangQ;Chinese:房骞骞), a Chinesebiomedical imaging researcher at theMassachusetts General Hospital, in October, 2004.[1][2][3]
The fonts of the WenQuanYi project are now included with theLinux distributionsUbuntu,Fedora,Slackware,Magic Linux andCDLinux.Debian,Gentoo,Mandriva,Arch Linux andFrugalware offer the sources for WenQuanYi fonts.[4] The fonts are among the Chinese fonts officially supported byWikimedia.[5]
WenQuanYi's website is usingHabitat, aWikisoftware derived fromUseModWiki by Qianqian Fang. It is allowed to create or modify the glyphs online.
WenQuanYi project aims to create high-quality open-sourcebitmap andoutline fonts for allCJK characters.[6][7] It includesZen Hei (Regular, Mono and Sharp),Micro Hei (Regular and Mono),Bitmap Song andUnibit font.[4] As of version 0.8.38, the WenQuanYi Zen Hei font covers more than 35,000glyphs.[8]
| Font family | Initial release | Latest stable release | Serif? | Bitmap? | Monospace? | License | Chars | Glyphs | Format | Page | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zen Hei | September 15, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-09-15) | 0.9.45 (Fighting-state RC1) (March 12, 2010; 15 years ago (2010-03-12)[9]) [±] | Sans | No | No | GPL 2 | TTC | [1] |  | ||
| Zen Hei Mono | No | Yes |  | ||||||||
| Zen Hei Sharp | No[note 1] | No | [note 1] | ||||||||
| Micro Hei | May 25, 2009; 16 years ago (2009-05-25) | 0.2.0 beta (BigBang)[note 2] (May 25, 2009; 16 years ago (2009-05-25)[9]) [±] | Sans | No | No | Apache 2 / GPL 3 | TTC | [2] |  | ||
| Micro Hei Mono | No | Yes |  | ||||||||
| Bitmap Song | June 25, 2005; 20 years ago (2005-06-25) | 0.9.9 (Hero) (November 4, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-11-04)[9]) [±] | Serif (Ming) | Yes (only 11-16px) | No | GPL 2 | Multi-strike Bitmap Font | [3] |  | ||
| Unibit | May 25, 2009; 16 years ago (2009-05-25) | 1.1.0 (September 14, 2007; 18 years ago (2007-09-14)[9]) [±] | Sans | Yes | Yes | GPL 2 | Multi-strike Bitmap Font | [4] |  |
WenQuanYi Zen Hei (文泉驿正黑), WenQuanYi Zen Hei Mono (文泉驿等宽正黑) andWenQuanYi Zen Hei Sharp (文泉驿点阵正黑) co-exist in a single TTC file. They are also with embedded bitmaps. TheLatin/Hangul characters are derived from UnDotum,Bopomofo are from cwTeX, mono-spaced Latin are from M+ M2 Light. These fonts have full CJK coverage. The font package is included with Fedora and Ubuntu.
WenQuanYi Micro Hei (文泉驿微米黑),WenQuanYi Micro Hei Mono (文泉驿等宽微米黑) are derived from theDroid Sans font (merged with Droid Sans Fallback) and readable in compact sizes. The primitive motivation of this project was to extend Droid Sans Fallback's glyph coverage. Since theGB 18030 compatible Droid Sans Fallback font's release, the Micro Hei project has been de facto inactive.
Unlike Zen Hei, which is drawn stroke-by-stroke, Micro Hei and its predecessor Droid Sans are created by combiningradical components using TrueType references. The main goal is a reduced file size, hence "Micro".
WenQuanYi Bitmap Song (文泉驿点阵宋体) has full coverage toGB 18030 Hanzi at 11-16px (9pt-12pt) font sizes.
WenQuanYi Unibit (文泉驿Unibit) adopted theGNU Unifont's scheme of 8x16 and 16x16 glyphs. Then the contributors added 10,000 more glyphs. The improvements done by WenQuanYi Unibit has been merged back to GNU Unifont.[7]
The glyph of traditional characters included in WenQuanYi is the new character form of the mainland China. The glyph comes from G-Source (character source from mainland China) of Unicode and the standard of a character list from the 1988List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese and the 2009List of Commonly Used Standard Chinese Characters.
The glyph is not from T-Source (character source from Taiwan) and H-Source (character source from Hong Kong). It does not conform with the standardized traditional character writing behavior of writers from Taiwan and Hong Kong. In other words, it does not support the traditional Chinese character set. (For more information, seeHan unification.)
Some examples of characters with different glyph are:別, 吳, 骨, 角, 過, 這, 草, 放, etc.
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