How to make Fake Bold/Italic work in Illustrator CS2?

I think I got clear picture of my Japanese Bold/Italic issue. I simply need to find the right fonts.

Thank you guys for your generous and prompt help.

Jay

>The Japanese do not use italics in their typesetting as a general rule. Thus, you'll find italic font variations very difficult to find.

The same applies to runes, and to some others.

Yes, if you don't mind giving readers headaches. Using different typestyles to achieve font variations is as bad a design practice in Japanese as it is in Roman languages.

I might make an exception if the "different" typestyles are in fact the same or very close to being the same, such as Helvetica and Swiss.

>...for Japanese fonts, I do have big headache because almost none of them offer Bold/Italic font family files. Am I dead in the water with Bold/Italic Japanese text?

Spring for some professional fonts. Every Japanese font that ships with the Creative Suite (Kozuka Mincho and Gothic, and Ryo families), for example, are supplied in multiple weights.

The Japanese do not use italics in their typesetting as a general rule. Thus, you'll find italic font variations very difficult to find.

Thank you guys for hopping in with ample information.

I am actually dealing with automated document conversion processes using AI CS2 as parser. The input are SVG files and our interface does allow users to set Bold/Italic texts when generating SVG files. A 3rd party background Windows Service actually does AI parsing jobs for me using Javascript/VBScript. In summary, I don't really manually interact with AI CS2. Therefore, I can not do the Shear or Outline storke you guys suggested.

However, my output files do require professional press quaility. So, I think 'Faking' Bold/Italic is not an option I can take. It looks like my only choice is not to use fonts without complete font family. That is doable for English fonts for there are many to choose from the market. But, for Japanese fonts, I do have big headache because almost none of them offer Bold/Italic font family files. Am I dead in the water with Bold/Italic Japanese text?

Jay

Neither the shear transform nor adding a stroke require the text to be converted to outlines. If the same font is available to the printer, output should not be an issue. Still, 'faux' bold and italic effects should be avoided for typographic reasons.

> That's when you start all over.

That's when you're happy you always keep a copy-intact version of your files.

The convert to outlines goes without saying; they aren't text anymore but just a string of graphic elements which happen to uncannily resemble letters forming words.

Simple, yet not-often-enough way is add a stroke.

The reason you can't 'fake' bold or italic is because print shops can't use text that has been tweaked in a way the font itself does not include or support and it wreeks havoc in their systems (not to mention destroys layouts when corrected).

Ask a print shop if they accept Publisher files. When they say no, the font thing will be at the top or very near the top of their long list as to why. Most of them call it forcing (or at least most of the ones I've talked to).

It's like using a can opener to dig a ditch: You can use it yourself to your heart's content but if you want a professional ditch digger to do it for you, you better give him a shovel.

I am glad you are still awake, Kurt. I managed to overlook the bold part.

For the bold part, look at the Offset Path effect for example.

Jay,

Object>Transform>Shear.