Hao-Mei Wang The Chinese language has over 100,000 characters, but only about 7% are used daily. For five centuries, people have asked, “How many characters do we need to make a Chinese font?” This began when Western missionaries tried to create Chinese typefaces in the 16th century.
Today, Big5 is the main standard for Traditional Chinese, including over 13,000 characters since the 1990s. While reduced, it still omits many essential characters for fields like physics, chemistry, biology, classical literature, and personal names. This shows that earlier efforts do not meet modern needs and often hinder meaningful projects.
To address these issues, justfont created the open-source jf7000 Essential Character Set. Leveraging government data, industry standards, and expert input, jf7000 includes about 7,000 commonly used characters.
Additionally, jf7000 can be expanded with extension packs for specific needs, such as Taiwanese names, Formosan languages, Cantonese, Japanese, and various professional fields. This flexibility allows designers to choose the necessary packs, making it easier and faster to create useful typefaces.
Since its launch, jf7000 has received valuable feedback from the Traditional Chinese community. Fan groups added characters for K-pop stars’ Hanja names, and professionals like chemists and language teachers contributed important missing characters. This collaboration has expanded the jf7000 set to meet diverse needs. The jf7000 Essential Character Set also simplifies the design process by allowing users to check character availability in the basic set or extension packs on the official website, aiding informed choices.
By enabling creative ideas previously limited by workload and addressing specialized needs, jf7000 fosters innovation and meets detailed demands in diverse applications. In our presentation, we will share the development story, community feedback, supported projects, and future plans, helping Traditional Chinese type design thrive both digitally and physically.