Han character font sharing across incompatible bitmap file formats
Man-Chi Pong, Fung Fung Lee, Ricky Yeung, Yongguang Zhang · 1994
We identify the problem of sharing Han character font across incompatible bitmap file formats and discuss the related issues. The ideal solution should meet the requirements including independence of character code schemes, such as GB2312-80, Big5, and Unicode, no conversion of existing bitmap font files, storage efficiency, flexibility, extensibility, platform independence, as well as simplicity. Basic principles of how to achieve the above requirements are described. As a realization of the ideas, a new Han character bitmap font specification format, called HBF, has been developed and is presented here. In fact, the HBF approach allows the sharing of fixed-pitch fonts (hanzi bitmap fonts in particular) described in HBF format easily. Man-Chi Pong's research was partially supported by the Hong Kong UPGC Research Infrastructure Grant No. RI92/93.EG08 administrated by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 1 Introduction Users of Chinese software may have frequently en...