problem about typesetting Chinese characters in Latex

Question

I found the post How does one type Chinese in LaTeX? about how to typeset Chinese in Latex. I just encountered the same problem, and my questions are:

1.To type Chinese or Japanese, I have to have some particular packages (such as CJK/XeCJK) installed, don't I?

2.I'm confused by the first solution in that post, it looks like this:

% UTF-8 encoding
% Compile with latex+dvipdfmx, pdflatex or xelatex
% XeLaTeX is recommanded
% Some Chinese fonts should be installed in your system (SimSun, SimHei, FangSong, KaiTi)
\documentclass[UTF8]{ctexart}
\begin{document}
文章内容。
\end{document}

The above solution just uses a class ctexart without any particular packages, and I tried to replace ctexart with article, it failed. So I wonder what is special about ctexart which can display Chinese without any add-on packages?

The ctexart document class itself loads CJK (if using pdflatex) or the xeCJK (if using xelatex) package, hence it works! — imnothere, Mar 26 '13 at 07:46
@LianTzeLim, so if I want to type CJK characters, I have to get those packages (CJK or XeCJK) ready anyway, right? — avocado, Mar 26 '13 at 07:49
That's right. You can install these packages pretty easily via the package management tools that come with TeXlive or MikTeX. — imnothere, Mar 26 '13 at 08:02

Nils L · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-26T12:05:53.510

6

The following works pretty well in both LuaLaTeX and XeTeX without any special packages. fontspec (which I don't count among special packages) simply uses the SimSun font from Windows's font directory (as suggested in the code you're providing).
```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{SimSun}
\begin{document}
文章内容。
\end{document}
```
ctexart simply loads the packages it needs, see LianTze Lim's comment.

edited Mar 26 '13 at 12:05

answered Mar 26 '13 at 07:49

Nils L

9,716

Thanks, your fontspec solution works, but let me get it straight, why fontspec works? This package tell the tex engine how to handle the Chinese character? – avocado Mar 26 '13 at 07:53
[tag:fontspec] is a package that basically provides a connection between XeTeX or LuaTeX and the fonts installed on your system, particularly .otf and .ttf files. When using Xe or Lua, fontspec is almost a must-load, even for people typesetting texts in plain English. If I wanted to use Times New Roman, I'd simply use that same code I gave you, but say \setmainfont{Times New Roman} instead. Note that in traditional pdfTeX, fontspec is neither required, nor does it work, as fonts are handled differently there. See also here. – Nils L Mar 26 '13 at 07:58
So, I have to compile the .tex using LuaTex or XeTex if I use fontspec, right? – avocado Mar 26 '13 at 08:06
that is correct. – Nils L Mar 26 '13 at 08:08
BTW, if I don't use \setmainfont{SimSun}, nothing shows in pdf, why? Without setmainfont, tex doesn't know how to do with the CJK characters? Furthermore, why use \setCJKmainfont when using package CJK? Can't I use setmainfont? – avocado Mar 26 '13 at 09:07
I can't say much about CJK-related issues. You might add that question to your original one. All I can say is: if you don't use \setmainfont at all, the »Latin Modern« fonts will be loaded, and these don't have CJK characters (as the name suggests). – Nils L Mar 26 '13 at 11:43
This method doesn't work if I want the English text to be san serif font (\sffamily), any remedy? – Yan King Yin Mar 10 '15 at 13:41
can you specify »doesn't work«? Are you using \setmainfont and \setsansfont correctly? – Nils L Mar 10 '15 at 18:24

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 26 '13 at 07:48

1

ctexart, ctexbook and ctexrep are the equivalent to "article", "book" and "report" of the standard classes. You should definitely use those if you have Chinese text.

answered Mar 26 '13 at 07:48

Ingmar

6,690
5
26
47

problem about typesetting Chinese characters in Latex

2 Answers2