Mojikyo fonts for Mac available

[Nobumi Iyanaga]

I shall post this message to some mailing lists to which I participate.
Please forgive me if you receive more than one copy of this message.

================

Hello,

I am happy to announce that the Mojikyo fonts converted for the use on Mac
are now available online, at:

http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/index.htm

The ReadMe's are only in Japanese (I was meaning to translate them into
English, but I had not time...  I shall do it when I shall have some time),
so here are some basic notes on Mojikyo and the use of Mac fonts:

First, some warnings about the download:

1.  The download file urls are:
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/FONT1_9.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/FONT_21.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/NBLIST.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/TBLIST.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/DISPLAY.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/NEXLIST.HQX
http://www.mojikyo.gr.jp/mac/TEXLIST.HQX

2.  The two first files, containing the fonts, are very big (33MB and 18MB)
-- so please have patience when you download them.  You will have to put all
the font suitcases in the Font folder, in the System Folder, and restart the
computer to be able to use them.

3.  NBLIST.HQX and NEXLIST.HQX contain files to be used with the
word-processing program named "Nisus Writer"; and TBLIST.HQX and TEXLIST.HQX
contain files to be used with the shareware editor named "Tex-Edit Plus"
(please see below on the contents of these "character list files").  If you
don't have neither of them, it would be better to download at least Tex-Edit
Plus before downloading the fonts and the character list files.  Anyway, you
don't need to download all of these four files: if you have Nisus Writer (or
if you intend to use it), I recommend to download the Nisus files;
otherwise, the files for Tex-Edit Plus will be sufficient.

4.  DISPLAY.HQX contains a very little AppleScript utility script which may
be useful when using Mojikyo fonts.

---------------------

Mojikyo, or more precisely Konjaku Mojikyo, i.e. the "Mirror of characters
of old and new days", is a new, really revolutionary system of Kanji
(Chinese characters) handling in the personal computing which has been
developped and released in Japan.  Mojikyo consists essentially of many
TrueType fonts for the Japanese version of Windows (95/98 or NT) --
containing up to 80000 characters (all the Chinese characters in the
Dictionary of Morohashi are there; there are also many Vietnamese
characters, Korean characters, "Oracle Bone" characters (kookotsu-bun) and
Siddham characters), and of a very fine finding program, which allows to
retrieve easily characters of which you don't know the pronounciation, etc.
The fonts can be downloaded free of charge; and a simplified finding
program is also available free of charge at the Mojikyo web site (the
complete finding program is a commercial product).  Mojikyo is also an open
system, meaning that it is possible to add any number of new characters in
the system.  The users (who will become members of the association "Mojikyo
Institute") can report new characters; new TrueType fonts for these
characters will be provided by the Mojikyo Institute.

As a member of the Association "Mojikyo Institute", and having been allowed
by the copyright owner of Mojikyo system (AI Net Corporation), I converted
the fonts (using a shaware utility named TrueKeys), and made other Mac files
contained in the web site.

The Mac fonts are Shif-JIS fonts; you can use them if you have Japanese
Language Kit, or if you use Mac OS 8.5 or later.

The Mac version does not contain the finding program (neither the complete,
commercial one, nor the simplified one); instead, I made two series of
character list files to be used with Nisus Writer or Tex-Edit Plus.  Nisus
Writer is a very fine multilingual word-processing program for Mac; its old
version (4.1.x) is distributed freely by Nisus Software (cf.
http://www.nisus.com/nisusdl/login1.asp?new=yes&product=nw416).  Tex-Edit
Plus is a multilingual editor supporting AppleScript; it is a shareware
program that can be downloaded from http://www.bridge1.com (or probably any
Info Mac mirror...).

For each of these programs, there are two folders:
bushu2                  (NBLIST.HQX and TBLIST.HQX)
and
extradaikanwa2          (NEXLIST.HQX and TEXLIST.HQX)

The folder "bushu2" contains a list of all the characters in the Morohashi
Dictionary of Chinese characters [called usually "Morohashi Daikanwa jiten"]
(some 50,000 characters or more), divided into 214 files, corresponding to
214 bushu's or radicals.  Inside each radical, the characters are listed
according to the number of strokes.  The numbering of characters is the same
as the one used in the Morohashi Dictionary.  This folder contains also a
file named "Index of Bushu", and a folder with some utility macros (for
Nisus Writer) or AppleScript scripts (for Tex-Edit Plus).

The other folder, "extradaikanwa2" contains a list of other characters than
those in the Morohashi Dictionary, which are contained in the Mojikyo fonts.
This list is divided according to the number of fonts (each font is divided
into several files). Very unfortunately, there is almost no order at all in
these "Extra-Daikanwa" characters (no order other than the Mojikyo
numbering).  You can however browse these files; you can also find
characters if you have the Mojikyo numbers of given characters.

I know that these files are not very helpful when you want to find a
character (especially if it is a "extra-Daikanwa" character...).  I made
them, hoping that it is better to have them than nothing at all.  I hope
that there will be a better finding system for Mac some day -- but I cannot
promise anything right now.

I would like to add that the two big projects, one Taiwanese and the other
Japanese, of inputting Taisho Buddhist Canon into e-texts (cf.
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/cbeta/ and http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~sat/), and
also the Japanese database of Buddhist studies
(http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~inbuds/) use Mojikyo numbers to represent the
"gaiji's" (characters other than those contained in the standard character
sets, like JIS, Big5 or Unicode...).

If you have any problem or difficulty to use these fonts and files (or
macros/AppleScript scripts) for Mac, please write me.

Nobumi Iyanaga
(n-iyanag at ppp.bekkoame.ne.jp)

P.S.  There will be other formats of Mojikyo fonts -- especially Mojikyo
fonts for TeX.  They will be soon available at the Mojikyo web site.