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sagrale
Participant
July 31, 2020
Answered

english + chinese text - chinese appears as glyphs....how to find/replace glyphs with another font

  • July 31, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 3268 views

I have created a Word doc with English text and Chinese characters using Helvetica CY. I copy and paste this into Indesign and the Chinese text appears as glyphs....I'm working on a huge document and have had to manually change each glyph to a recognisable Chinese font, but there must be a way to find all the pink glyphs and in one go, change them to another Chinese font that makes the Chinese characters re-appear?!!!


Can anyone help me with this? Thanks...I'm a beginner with Indesign.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer David W. Goodrich

A GREP search for <[\x{2E80}-\x{9FBB}]+> will find most CJK chars in Unicode's first plane, allowing you to change the font and apply a character style. Note that this is not complete, missing some full-width punctuation at the far end of the base plane, and it doesn't touch the many thousands of CJK chars. in the 2nd plane.

Good luck,

David

4 replies

Ciara Mitchell
Ciara Mitchell
Participant
November 23, 2021

Hello,

 

I am wondering if someone can help me. I have used the GREP search which allows me to change the Chinese charachter style. But commas and other punctiation are still showing up as missing glyphs.

Any help would be really apprecaiated. 

Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 23, 2021

Well, when I know I have a document that only has Chinese and English in it, I use a brute-force regular expression:

 

[\x{0100}-\x{FFFF}]+

 

It does catch all of the fullwidth punctuation that David mentions upthread. I won't use this regex  in any kind of multilingual document, because it catches pretty much everything outside of Basic Latin. So it'd apply the same style to Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Thai, you name it. But if you know that it's Chinese only (or Basic Latin + Chinese only) then it should catch all of your stragglers. 

    Ciara Mitchell
    Ciara Mitchell
    Participant
    November 23, 2021

    Oh wow, this worked! Thanks so much. 

    David W. Goodrich
    David W. GoodrichCorrect answer
    Participating Frequently
    July 31, 2020

    A GREP search for <[\x{2E80}-\x{9FBB}]+> will find most CJK chars in Unicode's first plane, allowing you to change the font and apply a character style. Note that this is not complete, missing some full-width punctuation at the far end of the base plane, and it doesn't touch the many thousands of CJK chars. in the 2nd plane.

    Good luck,

    David

      Jongware
      Community Expert
      JongwareCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 31, 2020

      And it can be set up in a GREP Style as well. When done properly this works fast, reliable, and independent.

      T
      Test Screen Name
      Legend
      July 31, 2020

      Consumer apps like Word will often pick a random font if you try to use characters outside the current font. This is poison for professional typesetting, so there is no automatic process. You MUST choose a font with Chinese characters for each Chinese character. Of couse you should be using a character style for this, never changing the font!! 

      jane-e
      Community Expert
      jane-eCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 31, 2020

      What happens when you properly choose File > Place instead of Copy and Paste?

      ~ Jane

      S
      sagraleAuthor
      Participant
      July 31, 2020

      It works when I Place in a new document but when I Place it in the one I'm working on it looks like the attached and I have to laboriously delete spaces, line by line. (and I can't get rid of the black line!)

      Lee

      jane-e
      Community Expert
      jane-eCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 31, 2020

      Turn on Show Hidden Characters and open the story in the Story Editor from the View menu. What is causing the extra lines you have to delete? If there is a hidden character, show a screen shot so we can help identify it. You shouldn't have to delete the spaces line by line.

       

      For the black line, check:

      • Character panel > Underline
      • Paragraph panel menu > Borders
      • Paragraph panel menu > Paragraph Rules > Below

      and let us know if any of these solve it.

       

      You do need to use Character styles when part of the paragraph is using Chinese characters. You can create and apply the Character style in Word if that's easier. If it has the exact same name in both Word and InDesign, it will come in automatically.

       

      ~ Jane

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