How to set the Chinese font for use in spans within English text

Questions
1

Using Libertinus Serif as the base font of a document, in a string of inline Chinese characters, the first is rendered in some equivalent serif-type font, but subsequent characters are rendered in a non-serif type font (probably ‘PingFang SC’ on Mac).

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How can I create a rule to ensure that all Chinese characters are rendered in an appropriate given font like Songti SC?

Thanks

2

I think you want something like this:

#set text(font: ("Songti SC", (name: "Libertinus Serif", covers: "latin-in-cjk")))

That is, if your main document language is Chinese.

Otherwise, I think this should work:

#set text(font: ("Libertinus Serif", "Songti SC"), fallback: false)

The fallback: true will ensure that no other font is used, but this could potentially mean that some characters will not be displayed.

text.font

3

Thanks. My main document language is English, but your alternative fails because the Web app, which I’m using at the moment, doesn’t recognise Songti SC,

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but if I replace “Songti SC” with “Noto Serif CJK SC” it works. I found reference to that in the documentation, so thank you for your help.

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4

You can always bring your fonts (files) with you into the project. It will pick them up.

5

Thanks again. Actually Noto Serif CJK SC works very well, so I’ll stick with that for the web app. I have installed it on my computer, so I can use it for other purposes too.

6

I use Noto CJK fonts because it’s the most popular FOSS fonts. But I know from a small experience that natives use some other fonts, maybe some standard fonts in some OS.

7

I am native English, though have worked with Chinese for many years. Songti SC is standard on recent Mac OS’s, though the default SC font is PingFang SC, a sort of Helvetica equivalent which I don’t like. I don’t know the copyright status of Songti SC. I have recently moved to using to FOSS fonts, particularly Libertinus Serif for most texts, so Noto Serif CJK suits me fine for where I need Chinese, and it looks good with Libertinus Serif.

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I work with a Windows-based Chinese collaborator so anything shared with her has whatever is standard on our machines with automatic substitution where necessary.

8

I will mention that Typst fully embeds a font subset into the PDF document, unlike some other tools. So PDF viewer will never substitute the embedded fonts. This is such a big plus for portability and ability to print anything through any OS (without text issues).

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