1016792 - [meta] Use better default fonts on Windows for Chinese, Japanese and Korean

Status: NEW

(Core :: Layout: Text and Fonts, defect)

Description

[Gingerbread Man]

Attachment: Before and after comparisons - Wikipedia main page

Windows Vista introduced CJK ClearType fonts that look nice and smooth. They're also available as free downloads for Windows XP. It would improve the out of the box experience if the old jagged fonts weren't used by default when the better ones are available.

Related: bug 960935.

Microsoft YaHei (Chinese Simplified)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14577
Also, apparently when Firefox is downloaded from www.mozillaonline.com / firefox.com.cn, it actually installs Microsoft YaHei in order to use it as the default.
See bug 644883 for details.

Microsoft JhengHei (Chinese Traditional)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12072

Meiryo (Japanese)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10550

Meiryo UI was introduced in Windows 7. It's available as a free download for Windows Vista and Server 2008, but not XP.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24941
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5572

Malgun Gothic (Korean)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10490

Comment 2

[Takeshi Kurosawa :takenspc]

For Japanese, IE 11 changed sans-serif font to Meiryo though the default font is still MS PGothic.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/dn467844.aspx
# Gecko doesn't have font settings corresponding to IE's "default font", do it?

Chromium recently changed both default and sans-serif fonts to Meiryo
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=368568

We may as well change default fonts.

Comment 3

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Make Meiryo the highest priority sans-serif font on Windows?

Kato-san, Nakano-san, opinions?

Comment 4

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

I think that this change might be OK, but my concern is...

- Meiryo has no Italic font.  So if we set font.name.sans-serif.ja is "Meiryo", Italic doesn't work without font-family.  It might be breaking web and Firefox UI.
- I think ClearType only work with DirectWrite.  If Direct2D is disabled by any reason such as blocking by driver version, font rendering isn't smooth.

I think we should watch feedback by Google's change.  That change isn't uplifted to Google Chrome beta/stable.

Comment 5

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

I think that this is very risky for Japanese websites which don't specify font-family at least for now. My web pages don't specify font-family property, then, both IE11 and Chromium (41.0.2259.0) still use MS PGothic.

One of big difference between MS PGothic and Meiryo is that Meiry has very tall internal-leading. This means that the used value of line-height: normal; in Gecko will be changed. This may cause breaking some websites... (Our normal line-height is computed with internal-leading and external leading: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/layout/generic/nsHTMLReflowState.cpp#2487 of eCompensateLeading case)

Comment 6

[Takeshi Kurosawa :takenspc]

> I think we should watch feedback by Google's change.

I agree because the situations are more complicated than I think.

> One of big difference between MS PGothic and Meiryo is that Meiry has very tall internal-leading.

Hmm... I also worried that Meiryo's tall internal-leading causes odd rendering of ruby texts which are currently displayed as inline (and not tested) though it may be separate issue.

Comment 7

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

Chrome stable is changed to Meiryo.  When I look SNS and blogs, there is a lot of feedback of both positive and negative.  Both seems to be same percentage.

This change seems to become breaking web page because character width/height is different of MS P Gothic...

Comment 8

[Xidorn Quan [:xidorn] UTC+11]

(In reply to Takeshi Kurosawa from comment #6)
> Hmm... I also worried that Meiryo's tall internal-leading causes odd
> rendering of ruby texts which are currently displayed as inline (and not
> tested) though it may be separate issue.

I can confirm that Meiryo makes ruby text look much farther with ruby base than the current default font.

Comment 9

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

> My web pages don't specify font-family property, then, both IE11 and Chromium (41.0.2259.0) still use MS PGothic.

Hmm, current Google Chrome use Meiryo in default settings. On the other hand, I realized odd behavior of IE 11 (on Win 8.1). I realized that my IE 11's default font setting is still "MS PGothic". When I reset IE's settings, I see IE renders my site with Meiryo. However, after restarting my computer (because IE said it's necessary), then, the default font setting is restored to "MS PGothic". I'm still not sure why my IE hate Miryo, though.

This seems that not all users of IE 11 may be reading web sites with MS PGothic...

(In reply to Makoto Kato (:m_kato) from comment #7)
> Chrome stable is changed to Meiryo.  When I look SNS and blogs, there is a
> lot of feedback of both positive and negative.  Both seems to be same
> percentage.
> 
> This change seems to become breaking web page because character width/height
> is different of MS P Gothic...

I wonder whether it is worthwhile to change our default font to "better" look fonts even though we break some web site compatibility.

At least in Japan, most users commenting in forums, twitter, etc comment only negative fact. This may make damage our marketing share. We should sensitive to this fact.

As far as I know, users who complain about the quality of MS PGothic changes settings themselves or use MacType (hack tool of font rendering). In other words, such users have enough skill to solve this problem by themselves.

So, the most important point if we should change default font settings is, changing font settings cause increasing our market share or keeping chance to get new users (when new users tests all browsers to decide their new default browser). I think that changing default settings *might* be better for the latter case. But I guess that it's not greater than spreading native comments in forums and SNS.

So, my current idea is, we should keep current settings until we will see a lot of users who complain about our conservative font choice. However, such situation might never come because web sites can specify font-family with CSS, therefore, users must see same font in new web sites.

Comment 10

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

Attachment: Screenshot of Meiryo with border-bottom in Japanese major newpaper site

This is one of the most important issue of Meiryo.

Meiryo causes too tall inline box. Therefore, border-bottom and border-top are rendered too far from the glyph and may be overlapped with previous or next line.

This occurs with UA stylesheet of <abbr> and <acronym>. Testcase is here:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.gr.jp/show_bug.cgi?id=5976

Comment 11

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #0)
> Microsoft YaHei (Chinese Simplified)

It's the default proportional font starting with Firefox 38.

Comment 12

[NVD]

Windows 10 ships with Yu Gothic & Yu Mincho Japanese fonts, does Microsoft Edge on Win10 uses these 2 fonts as their default Japanese fonts or still MS PGothic?

Comment 13

[Xidorn Quan [:xidorn] UTC+11]

Attachment: Windows font test

From this page, it seems to me that Edge on Windows 10 uses 'MS Mincho' as their default Japanese serif font, while Firefox and Chrome currently use 'MS PMincho'.

Yu Mincho/Gothic have the same issue as Meiryo that, they have a larger padding than previous, which could break layout of some existing pages.

Comment 14

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

Edge on Japanese Windows 10 uses Meiryo for Sans-Serif (Serif isn't good to read on screen due to complicated Kanji characters). However, if web pages don't specify font-family, MS PGothic is used. So, on Edge, font-familiy: initial; is different from font-family: serif; and font-family: sans-serif;...

Comment 15

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

Oh, but specifying font-family: initial; rendered as font-faimily: serif; even on Japanese page...

Comment 16

[Kagami Rosylight [:saschanaz] (they/them)]

Hello, what's the status of replacing Korean font with Malgun Gothic? It seems the discussion here is mainly for Japanese.

Some new information: The latest MSEdge on Non-CJK Windows 10 uses Malgun Gothic and Yu Gothic, as the latest Windows build (15063) does not include Gulim(Korean) and Meiryo(Japanese) by default anymore. Windows now includes them only when each language pack is installed.

Comment 17

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

(In reply to saschanaz from comment #16)
> Hello, what's the status of replacing Korean font with Malgun Gothic? It
> seems the discussion here is mainly for Japanese.

Nobody is working on Korean default font changes for now since such change requires a lot of testers who use the language mainly everyday. However, there is no active Korean developers of Firefox.

> Some new information: The latest MSEdge on Non-CJK Windows 10 uses Malgun
> Gothic and Yu Gothic, as the latest Windows build (15063) does not include
> Gulim(Korean) and Meiryo(Japanese) by default anymore. Windows now includes
> them only when each language pack is installed.

Thanks for the information. It's similar to Japanese fonts too ("Meiryo" isn't installed in non-Japanese Win10 without the language pack). Fortunately, we can specify multiple fonts as default font for each language.

If there are a list of "good" Korean default fonts (both for glyph look and compatibility with Chrome), a developer who can handle regressions of some Korean web pages and some bug reporters of Korean web pages, it may be possible to change the default Korean fonts.

Comment 18

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

(In reply to saschanaz from comment #16)
> Hello, what's the status of replacing Korean font with Malgun Gothic? It
> seems the discussion here is mainly for Japanese.
> 
> Some new information: The latest MSEdge on Non-CJK Windows 10 uses Malgun
> Gothic and Yu Gothic, as the latest Windows build (15063) does not include
> Gulim(Korean) and Meiryo(Japanese) by default anymore. Windows now includes
> them only when each language pack is installed.

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