Full Version: Help with Japanese Font?
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#13]
21 Nov 2006
To: JHayes55 [#12] 21 Nov 2006
Japanese is usually called a Kanji font.
When I did Chinese I had the written Chinese text to work with. I then used Corel to hand do a vector over it and exported the vector as PLT.
The other things I did in Chinese were sent to me in large print and I did a trace of it to export as PLT.
If he can get the letters to you in a large format you can scan and X3 trace them to use.
Funny story. I had a major company get me something in Chinese that I needed, Made In The USA. I received an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with it quite large. Over it someone hand wrote 'Made in the USA' in English. I engraved the sign and mounted it but something just looked wrong. Some Chinese teenagers came into the store and I asked them. It was Upside-Down. The Chinese language is basically pictograms, they have a solid base, upside-down they do not look stable.
From: Engravin' Dave (DATAKES) [#14]
21 Nov 2006
To: JHayes55 [#12] 21 Nov 2006
Joe,
If it makes you feel any better, that's exactly what I did for a gift I created for a Korean couple who own a local hotel. A Korean employee wrote it out, I scanned it, vectorized it and engraved it.
EDITED: 21 Nov 2006 by DATAKES
From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#15]
21 Nov 2006
To: JHayes55 [#1] 21 Nov 2006
The Katakana characters are used for spelling out foreign words or spelling words phonetically. They are phonetic characters like our character set. But not with a direct one-to-one relationship to ours. There are 46 basic letters, and another 26 compound ones, and then a few extras for good measure.
You notice when somebody from a certain country has a problem pronouncing certain words? That's usually because the sounds they are having trouble with don't exist in their own language. (for example the word "video" is pronounced "bideo" in Japanese)
Below is an example of the Katakana spelling of my name, Dave Jones.
You really have to have a Japanese person translate the words and names for you.
My first business card that had Japanese on the back was translated by the Japanese speaking person that worked at the Norwegian embassy (don't ask). The result was that my title, which on the English side said I was an electronic engineer ended up being translated as a construction engineer. Needless to say my next business card was translated by a Japanese native. :S
EDITED: 21 Nov 2006 by DAVERJ
From: PenTrophy (PENINSULATROPHY) [#16]
21 Nov 2006
To: JHayes55 [#12] 21 Nov 2006
From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#17]
21 Nov 2006
To: PenTrophy (PENINSULATROPHY) [#16] 21 Nov 2006
Most Asian fonts have the standard western characters in the same character positions as regular western fonts. The Asian characters are after those. Most of them are 16 bit fonts and require double keystrokes to type in the Asian characters.
You can see the characters (and copy/paste them) using the system Character Map utility: Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. (on older OS's the character map might be directly in the Accessories folder)
From: JHayes55 [#18]
21 Nov 2006
To: Engravin' Dave (DATAKES) [#14] 21 Nov 2006
Thanks Dave - sometimes simple is so much better - wished I would have done this first. But I thought I was the only one in the world that had not figured out how to translate with my computer.
The google site Mark sent me too is kind of neat but did not work for the words I was needing - some came out Japanese some did not change.
That site could be very useful.
From: JHayes55 [#19]
21 Nov 2006
To: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#17] 22 Nov 2006