Japanese typesetting with English version InDesign
It is always tough to typesetting foreign languages. Especially if you don’t have a right software to do it. I’m a native Japanese, so the Japanese typesetting is not the hardest job for me. But if you are using English version Adobe softwares, it will be bit tricky as they don’t have some functions for the Japanese typesetting. I have learned a few tricks to make the Japanese type beautiful with the English Adobe tools.
Kerning: Metrics or Optical
With the metrics kerning setting, the spacing after punctuations is quite tight. On the other hand, there is nice amount of space with the optical setting. So I would use optical for a body text and use metrics for titles and headline.
Metrics
Use Justify setting
Most of the Japanese typefaces are designed in a perfect square because a text flows horizontally and vertically. So people think it looks easier to read if the text is justified. Especially you are typesetting for brochures or books, justify setting is much preferable.
Make the Japanese font 1-2pt smaller
Many Japanese typefaces are 10-15% bigger than alphabets fonts. So if you make the Japanese font 1pt smaller or bit more, X-height of the English font will become more similar to the Japanese one.
Helvetica Neue (8pt) vs Kozuka Gothic (8pt)
Helvetica Neue (8pt) vs Kozuka Gothic (6.5pt)
Some grammer rules
There so many grammatical rules for the Japanese setting, but I just would to mention only 2 things that you should be aware.
1. Avoid putting a dash on a very left side of a text box.
A dash and 1 in Chinese character is very similar, a horizontal line. If you know it is 1 in Chinese character, it is fine, but you can not do it with the dash. So if you don’t know if it is a dash or number, just avoid putting them in the very left side of the text box.
2. Avoid putting a small letter on a very left of a text box.
Japanese has small letters like キャッシュ(2nd, 3rd and 5th letter). These smaller letters cannot go to the first word of the line.
Do Not
The Japanese type setting is quite difficult even for Japanese people as there are so many different characters such as Hiragana, Katakana, Alphabets, Kanji (Chinese characters), and numbers. But if you follow my suggestions above, it will not look very unprofessional at least.
欧米版InDesignを使った日本語組
最近仕事で日本語の文字組をする必要があり、ちょっと困ったことになりました。いかんせん、働いているのはイギリスのデザイン事務所。日本語版のInDesignなどなく、日本語組版機能のない欧米版InDesignを使用しなければいけません。それでもちゃんと日本語がキレイに見えるよういろいろ考えていみました。
カーニングにはオプティカルを使用
欧米版InDesignを使用していて一番困るのは、文字組みアキ量設定がないこと。なので、括弧やハイフンなど約物に異様なスペースが生まれてしまいます。そこでカーニング設定をメトリクスからオプティカル変更。そうすると、かなりいい感じで文字が詰まります。
しかし、これも苦肉の策。
カタカナのダッシュが次の文字に入り込んでしまったりする場合はあるので、そういったスペースがおかしい箇所はトラッキングを使って個々に修正していきます。