Google Fonts - Japanese in Font Book

Question

Level 1

4 points

Google Fonts - Japanese in Font Book

Hello Apple Community,

I’m trying to install Google Fonts into Font Book specifically Noto Sans Japanese and Noto Serif Japanese. I downloaded the .tff and imported it but it shows up in My Fonts as English Script not Japanese. I’ve attempted both variable and static .tff files. When I open Word for example and select it, the font shows up in English but isn’t reflected when I type in Japanese script. I have the language/keyboard for Japanese installed. Any ideas how to remedy this? Any help would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro (M4)

Posted on Nov 19, 2024 12:36 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,388 points

Nov 19, 2024 4:20 AM in response to katsu448

I installed just one of them, Noto Sans JP Regular and have no problem choosing it from the Word font list and using the Apple Hiragana IM to type Japanese with it (nihongo space on the keyboard), picture below.

Does it not appear in Word for you? Does the Japanese IM not work right?

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,388 points

Nov 19, 2024 8:11 AM in response to katsu448

katsu448 wrote:

Hello Apple Community,

I’m trying to install Google Fonts into Font Book specifically Noto Sans Japanese and Noto Serif Japanese.

Do those fonts have some particularly good properties in your view? Apple has quite a few Japanese fonts already installed by default in MacOS, as shown below (not including Noto and Unifont, which I added).

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Answer 3

katsu448 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 20, 2024 7:45 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hey Tom to follow up I can see the fonts now under Japanese in the left column but when I import other languages such as Chinese I don't see them under Chinese Fonts and they don't work in Word, it just auto defaults to DengXian Regular. Here are some pics to help show what i'm seeing. Japanese stuff shows up fine but Chinese doesn't. Here are my fonts that I imported the .tff from file add fonts to current user.

Japanese shows up ok now

and for some reason noto SC shows up in Japanese too but when I look at Chinese none of the added fonts are there.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,388 points

Nov 20, 2024 8:20 PM in response to katsu448

It really doesn't matter whether fonts show up in some particular place in Font Book, wlhich is usually buggy somewhere, and normally not of much use for anything practical. Many fonts cover multiple scripts in addition to what their name implies.

It does matter of course, if a font does not show up in the app where you want to use it. Can you see your Chinese font in Pages or Text Edit? If not in the drop down menu right away, check Format > Font > Show Fonts > All Fonts.

Word is not from Apple and does a lot of things its own way. If you provide the name and source of a font which does not work in that app, I am happy to test it on my machine.

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Answer 5

katsu448 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 20, 2024 11:33 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thank you Tom your insight has been incredibly helpful. The three fonts I've been looking to use are from Google Fonts Zhi Mang Xing, Liu Jian Mao Cao, and Long Cang. Zhi Mang Xing shows up in my text edit but the other two don't. None of them seem to work with Word though, so I will attempt with Pages.

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Answer 6

katsu448 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 20, 2024 7:01 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thank you Tom for the help got it working now, unsure why it wasn't showing up before. appreciate it

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