Viewing and creating Japanese documents and web pages under GNU/Linux

Last modified 2008-May-27.

Creating Japanese documents

This is discussed in detail in my How to create Japanese language documents under GNU/Linux using LaTeX. This includes instructions for using emacs to create a SJIS-encoded Japanese text file, which could be a Japanese LaTeX file, but could equally well be an HTML document or simply a text file for emailing.

Viewing Japanese documents

With the correct fonts installed, a Japanese text file can be viewed with emacs, as long as the correct coding is specified, or with a web browser. And a Japanese PostScript or PDF file can be viewed using ghostview, xpdf, or the Acrobat Reader.

1. Install the system-wide Japanese font packages

   In Fedora Core 4 and later there is one package fonts-japanese. In Fedora Core 3 and earlier they are split into ttfonts-ja and fonts-ja. Install the package(s). Then make sure they are in the font path. Under Fedora 8 and later, list the contents of /etc/X11/fontpath.d (xset q will tell you if X knows about this font catalogue directory). There should be a fonts-japanese entry. Under Fedora 7 and earlier, type chkfontpath and look for entries like /usr/share/fonts/japanese/misc and /usr/share/fonts/japanese/TrueType (In older versions they may be abbreviated to /usr/share/fonts/ja/misc and /usr/share/fonts/ja/TrueType).

2. Japanese PDF

   If you use xpdf then it should work, using the system-wide Japanese fonts. If you want to use Adobe's acroread then it requires an extra step. For acroread 6,7,8 you just go to The Adobe font pack website, specify your platform and acroread version, and download the font pack file. Untar it and (as root) run the INSTALL command in the resultant JPNKIT directory. The default place to install the fonts, /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Resource/Font, is the correct one, assuming you have a generic installation of acroread.

Printing Japanese documents

Most printers outside Japan do not have Japanese fonts resident on them, so even if your computer has the Japanese fonts installed, they will not appear in printout. I use PostScript printers: when setting up the printer (using system-config-printer under Fedora) you should go to the "Driver Options" tab for the printer queue and under "Ghostscript pre-filtering" select "Embed ghostscript fonts only". This will cause Japanese fonts to be uploaded to the printer.

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