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Chinese and Pinyin/Zhuyin Ruby Fonts

Free and commercial Chinese fonts
beyond those included with Windows


Free: Adobe Source Han & Google Noto CJK

Source Han Sans fontOffering as many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters as possible, along with Latin type specially designed to work beautifully in this set, these open source fonts were developed by experts at Adobe and Google in partnership with three font foundries in Asia and others in the community. They come in multiple weights and are available individually, in regional packages, or all together as one massive Pan-Asian collection.

Adobe Source Han Sans (黑體) and Adobe Source Han Serif (宋體) are on the Adobe Fonts arrow - new site website (search for "Source Han"), and can be downloaded and managed within the Creative Cloud arrow - new site app, or downloaded from GitHub. arrow - new site I use these in many desktop apps, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite.

The identical Google Noto CJK fonts can be downloaded from Google Fonts arrow - new site or Github, arrow - new site or for Google Docs and Slides just follow these instructions arrow - new site but in the "Fonts" box click on "Scripts" to select a language, and be aware that Noto Sans Traditional Chinese and Noto Sans Simplified Chinese are in the Google Fonts Library, arrow - new site but at this time Noto Serif Traditional Chinese and Noto Serif Simplified Chinese are available through the free Extensis fonts add-on. arrow - new site


Free: Babelstone

BabelStone fontThe Babelstone project, created by renowned Sinologist, Tangutologist, Khitanologist, Jurchenologist, and Anglicist Andrew West, arrow - new site offers a comprehensive serif font (宋体/明體) with many hard-to-find Chinese and other East Asian characters, in the Unicode font BabelStone Han arrow - new site and an additional font beyond Unicode called BabelStone Han PUA. arrow - new site He passed away in 2025, but others may carry on.


Free: WangHan and FangZheng Ruby Fonts

HanWang fontThe WangHan Zhuyin ruby fonts arrow - new site are in Traditional Kai (楷體) and Ming (明體) characters, with Bopomofo on the right. Download and install all four files for each style (eight total) so that you'll have the main font plus alternate pronunciations (poyin). (If that link disappears, try searching for "王漢宗48套字型" or "wanghan fonts" or "hanwang fonts".)

FangZheng fontThe FangZheng Pinyin ruby font arrow - new site is in Simplified Kai (楷体) characters, with Pinyin on top. This "collection" file will install six fonts starting with "FZKTPY" with all alternate pronunciations (poyin zi). Look for a "下载" button on that download page. You will need the free 7-Zip arrow - new site program or similar utility to extract from the ".rar" file. (If that link fails or disappears, try searching for "方正楷体拼音字库" or "FZKTPY".)

To use ruby fonts, just select one and start typing Chinese, or if you already have Chinese text in another font then select the text and choose a ruby font from the menu. When a Chinese character has more than one pronunciation (poyin zi), select that character and choose an alternate version of the same font from the font menu to change the ruby characters.

You can also use the Phonetic Guide in Microsoft Word for similar results, but there are limitations and many bugs. Phonetic Guide was ported from the Japanese version of Word long ago, in the late Nineties I think, and the Chinese version was never completely finished. For example, the last time I tried to move Bopomofo from the top to the side of some characters, the tones became incorrect!

Traditional+Pinyin ruby fonts, as well Traditional+Zhuyin and Simplified+Pinyin ruby fonts with more characters are available for purchase, as I'll explain below.


Ruby Fonts Available For Purchase

Below are examples of ruby fonts I purchased from DynaComware arrow - new site many years ago, when they were sold as part of a boxed CD-ROM set. Today they can be obtained online directly from Dynacomware. More are available from Arphic arrow - new site and probably others in a variety of download and cloud-based subscription options. Although you may not find ruby fonts in their online catalogs, if you contact them directly you will be offered many choices.

Zhuyin and Pinyin ruby fonts in MS Word



More Chinese Fonts Available for Purchase

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