Version 1.5.1, 22 October 2021

Version history:

• 1.0, 19 November 2015
• 1.1, 24 November 2015
• 1.2, 11 February 2016
• 1.3, 21 January 2021
• 1.4, 15 April 2021
• 1.4.1, 22 April 2021
• 1.5, 2 August 2021
• 1.51, 22 October 2021

Writing Style

The Song (also called Ming) style for Chinese is preferred. (Sòngtǐ/Míngtǐ; simplified char.: 宋体/明体; traditional char.: 宋體/明體)

Fonts

In many Brill publications, Chinese text is typeset using the Windows font PMingLiU 新細明體 (file name: "mingliu.ttc"). This font, a "TrueType Collection", contains a character set suitable to represent scholarly Chinese texts and those which are more of the 'traditional' type; it does not, however, contain many historical characters. Some rare and/or archaic characters in Chinese may only be found in the font BabelStone Han, which can be freely downloaded and used.

Chinese, i.e., people in the PRC (but not in Hong Kong and Macao), generally prefer another Song/Ming-type font: SimSun 中易宋体 (file name: "simsun.ttc"), with its companion SimSun-ExtB (file name: "simsunb.ttf"). Publications mainly geared towards, and/or authored by, PRC Chinese should use SimSun.

For journals, the font choice must be put to the Editorial Board, especially when a journal is a new startup, or is taken over from another publisher. In the case of books, the font choice must be settled with the author before page layout is started. PMingLiU and SimSun font sizes:

• main text, block quotes: 10 pt
• appendices, bibliographies: 9 pt
• footnote text, indexes: 9 pt

Marking Emphasis

Specify Bold Type

Mark emphasis in Chinese by specifying bold type. Because the default Brill typeface for Chinese, PMingLiU, lacks a bold companion, a different font must be used which has a bold character set. One choice is STZhongsong (华文中宋; the 'ST' stands for SinoType), a font which is (was?) bundled with some Chinese Windows systems; its file name is "STZHONGS.TTF". STZhongsong is getting pretty old, which is reflected in its limited character set (only CJK Unified Ideographs, none of the Extensions currently encoded in Unicode). A very good alternative found on Apple's macOS is Songti (华文宋体 / 华文宋體, file name "Songti.ttc"). This font collection has a much larger character set, including CJK Unified Ideographs A. It also contains a much wider variety of font weights, from Light through Regular and Bold to Black. If a typesetter has access to these macOS fonts, they are to be preferred.

Both STZhongsong and Songti have the same type size specifications as PMingLiU and SimSun.

Book Chapter and Journal Article Titles

Because these are set in bold type in Brill Typographical Style, the STZhongSong font must be used for these titles. Type size: 15 pt.

Fake Bold Type Not Allowed

Never allow typesetters to use fake bold type: although applications like MS Word and even Adobe InDesign can produce such type using a crude algorithm, the characters look positively dreadful, and many Chinese characters actually become unrecognisable and thereby illegible because they get more or less 'clogged up' in the process.

Other Style Matters

General Guidelines regarding Chinese Typography

W3C Requirements for Chinese Text Layout/中文排版需求 Although meant for Web applications, the Chinese typographic guidelines contained in this document – a working draft – often have general application in print publications as well. Whenever BTS or the documentation in the Brill Wiki fail to give guidance, please refer to the W3C web page mentioned.

Paragraph Indents in All-Chinese Text

All-Chinese paragraphs have a paragraph indent of two character widths in the first line (except when a paragraph follows directly on a heading or a line space, as per Brill Typographic Style). See § 3.4.1 Line Head Indent at the Beginning of Paragraphs in W3C Requirements for Chinese Text Layout. This is easily defined by beginning each indented all-Chinese paragraph with two ‘ideographic spaces’, U+3000, which are defined as being one character wide.

Subheading Auto-Numbers Formatting

Because of the smaller choice in font styles available in Chinese text (Brill currently uses only regular and bold Song/Ming styles as standard type styles) the distinction between different heading levels in all-Chinese text is apt to become obscured. As of January 21, 2021, the following instructions can be used to remedy such a typographic defect:

1. All subheadings in all-Chinese text containing more than one level must be numbered.
2. The auto-number formats for the first three levels are as follows:

一　　第一级小标题 (Chinese Subheading L1)

（一）　　第二级小标题 (Chinese Subheading L2)

1、　　第三级小标题 (Chinese Subheading L3)

Notes:

L1: Chinese numerals and heading text, STZhongsong font (or macOS Songti bold); two ‘ideographic spaces’ U+3000 between number and heading text; any Latin text Brill bold.

L2: Chinese numerals enclosed in fullwidth parentheses（）U+FF08.FF09; both numerals and text STZhongsong or macOS Songti bold; two ‘ideographic spaces’ U+3000 between number and heading text; any Latin text: Brill bold italic.

L3: Arabic numerals (Brill roman, OpenType proportional lining number format) followed by ideographic comma、U+3001 (STZhongsong/macOS Songti bold); heading text STZhongsong or macOS Songti bold; two ‘ideographic spaces’ U+3000 between number and heading text; any Latin text Brill roman.

Should any word or phrase in a Chinese heading formatted in bold need emphasis, revert to regular type.

Spaces, Punctuation Marks, Digits

In Chinese text, 'common' spaces (U+0020, U+00A0, U+202F) very rarely occur, if at all. The only spaces that do occur frequently are 'ideographic spaces' U+3000, often two of them (sometimes more, but Brill limits this to a pair of them) marking a paragraph indent. Such spaces must, of course, remain. Spacing near punctuation marks, quotation marks, and some other symbols is normally handled by adjusting white space in these characters themselves when a font is created, in left and/or right sidebearings, so any urge to adjust such spacing in a page layout application must be resisted.

Chinese spaces and punctuation marks are found in the Unicode ranges CJK Symbols and Punctuation and Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms, among the 'Fullwidth ASCII variants'. The W3C provides a handy list.

• In publications in which Chinese is the main or dominant language ('publication' meaning anything from a journal article, a contribution to an edited book volume, and larger units), typesetters must not replace Chinese parentheses – and possibly other punctuation marks – with 'common' parentheses/punctuation marks, or change the font from a Chinese one to 'Brill'. Neither must they change the font of digits to 'Brill'. Experience has proved that this causes spacing problems in all-Chinese text. Predominantly 'Latin' text paragraphs, such as block quotations and wholly 'Latin' footnotes should, of course, retain 'Latin' punctuation marks and digits, all in the Brill typeface.
• Typesetters should also make sure that applications do not insert spaces in Chinese text where there were no spaces before.

Useful general rules concerning Chinese punctuation can be found on the site of the World Wide Web Consortium: Line Composition Rules for Punctuation Marks.

Language and Regional Considerations

Please also consult CJKV fonts: How to choose between them.

Windows and macOS

Windows fonts, as long as they are TrueType fonts (.ttf) or TrueType Collections (.ttc) can also be used on macOS.

Historical and Rare Characters

The matter of historical characters is still in flux. Many have already been added to the Unicode Standard but there will still be some that are lacking from the Standard and hence from available fonts. From October of 2021, Brill has a renewed arrangement with Straive (formerly SPi Global) to produce non-standard characters on demand as resolution-independent pictures (Adobe Illustrator format). Straive outsources this to a China-based subcontractor. See Procedure for Ordering Non-Standard Chinese Characters (造字 zàozì).

Simplified or Traditional?

Both PMingLiU and SimSun cover Simplified and Traditional characters. But when authors or editors specifically ask for Simplified characters, the choice of SimSun is usually better; when Traditional Characters are explicitly called for, PMingLiU will generally be the better choice. Simsun and Simplified characters are associated with the PRC and Singapore, PMingLiU and traditional characters with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora.