View source for Meiryo

{{Short description|Series of Japanese typeface}}
{{Infobox font  
| name = Meiryo
| image = Meiryo font.svg
| style = [[Sans-serif]] 
| creator = [[C&G Inc.]], [[Eiichi Kōno]], Takeharu Suzuki (Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji), [[Matthew Carter]], Tom Rickner (Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic)
| foundry = [[Microsoft Typography]]
| trademark = Meiryo is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the [[United States]] and other countries.
| releasedate = 2008
}}

{{Nihongo|'''Meiryo'''|メイリオ|Meirio}} is a [[Japanese language|Japanese]] [[sans-serif]] [[Japanese gothic font|gothic]] [[typeface]]. [[Microsoft]] bundled Meiryo with Office Mac 2008 as part of the standard install, and it replaces [[MS Gothic]] as the default system font on Japanese systems beginning with [[Windows Vista]]. 

Meiryo was created out of a growing need for legible [[CJK characters|CJK]] fonts compatible with Microsoft [[ClearType]]'s [[Font hinting|hinting]] and [[subpixel rendering]] system. It was meant to increase the legibility of Japanese text on [[LCD screen]]s, and would thus take the place of [[MS Gothic]] and [[MS Mincho]], both of which had been widely used at the time. While most Latin fonts{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}} were able to use hinting at any size, most CJK fonts were incompatible with the technology{{Fact|date=August 2007}} (with the exception of some fonts such as [[Arial Unicode MS]]). Meiryo did away with embedding bitmap images into fonts for use at small sizes, a strategy employed by many CJK fonts (including MS Gothic and MS Mincho) to compensate for a lack of hinting support.

==Meiryo UI==
[[File:Meiryo compared to Meiryo UI.svg|thumb|300px|Meiryo ({{Color sample|black|description=black}}) compared to Meiryo UI ({{Color sample|red|description=red}})]]
Meiryo UI is a version that uses condensed [[kana]] and reduced line height compared to Meiryo, introduced with [[Windows 7]]<ref>[http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/windows7.htm New Fonts in Windows 7 Beta]</ref> and is also available as an update in Windows Vista.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Meiryo UI font is available for Windows Vista and for Windows Server 2008 |url=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-meiryo-ui-font-is-available-for-windows-vista-and-for-windows-server-2008-1fa3f5e9-1046-a5ed-d809-c977e7ca30e4 |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=support.microsoft.com}}</ref> Similar to [[MS UI Gothic]], the Meiryo UI fonts are bundled with the same Meiryo TTC files of respective weights.

==Characteristics==
Meiryo was designed as the enhanced version of [[Verdana]], regarded as a highly readable font. The font's [[Baseline (typography)|baseline]] was raised slightly to improve readability when mixing Latin and [[CJK]] texts. Meiryo glyphs for [[kanji]] and kana also have a height-to-width ratio of 95:100.
 
In previous Japanese fonts distributed with Windows, embedded [[bitmap]] glyphs are used whenever font size is set to around 9&nbsp;[[Point (typography)|points]]. Unlike previous fonts designed for [[CJK]] environments, Meiryo contains no embedded bitmaps. To improve readability under small font sizes without using embedded bitmaps, [[TrueType]] hinting language was used for stroke-reduction. A similar technology was used on [[MingLiU]] and [[PMingLiU]] versions 5.03.

Meiryo is developed to comply with [[JIS X 0213]]:2004 and can also use the newest set of [[Jinmeiyō kanji|personal name characters]] provided by the Japanese Minister of Justice. In addition, it contains [[OpenType]] tables for conversions between the old and new character forms (''[[kyūjitai]]'' and ''[[shinjitai]]'') introduced in the JIS78, JIS83, and JIS90 standards.{{Cn|date=July 2024}}

Meiryo supports the following OpenType layout features for [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], [[Han unification|Han Ideographic]], [[Kana]], [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] scripts: nalt, afrc, dnom, dlig, frac, fwid, hwid, hkna, ital, jp78, jp83, jp90, numr, qwid, ruby, sinf, zero, smcp, c2sc, liga, sups, twid, vkna, vrt2, vert, kern.

Meiryo also contains glyphs not normally accessible without a font editor. These glyphs include circled 00, 51–100; negative circled 00, 21–100, a–z, A–Z, kana; (rounded) square-enclosed characters, negative (rounded) square-enclosed characters; 2x2 CJK words.

The italic version of Meiryo only provides italicized glyphs for the Latin alphabet as written Japanese has no concept of an italic font.

==Availability==
For [[Microsoft Windows]], Meiryo is distributed as two [[TrueType]] Collection files, with regular and bold glyphs stored in separate files. Each file also contains an italic variant of the font.

As stated earlier, the font has been included with all [[Windows]] versions since [[Windows Vista|Vista]].

For [[Windows XP]], the font has become available free of charge by obtaining the Japanese version of [[Microsoft Visual C Sharp|Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition]] and electing to install the [[Silverlight|Microsoft Silverlight]] runtime. Downloading and installing the Japanese ClearType fonts for [[Windows XP]] from Microsoft also makes Meiryo available on [[Windows XP]].

Meiryo is also distributed with Japanese version of [[Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac]], Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office 2013.

== Authors ==
The Japanese characters of Meiryo were designed by C&G Inc. and [[Eiichi Kōno]], who also redesigned the [[Johnston (typeface)|Johnston]] font which is now used by [[London Underground]] as New Johnston. The Latin characters were designed by [[Matthew Carter]], the British-born creator of the [[Verdana]] font, and are visibly similar to characters from [[Verdana]]. By having a font designed by a combination of Japanese and Latin font experts, [[Microsoft]] strived to create a font in which written English and Japanese could present themselves well together side by side on the screen. American [[Tom Rickner]] of [[Ascender Corporation]] did extensive programming and font hinting for Meiryo. Rickner helped create the first [[TrueType]] fonts at [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] and did all the font hinting for [[Microsoft]]'s [[Georgia font|Georgia]] and [[Verdana]] fonts. According to Rickner, Meiryo is one of the first Japanese fonts created on and for the computer screen and took two years to create and engineer.

== About the name ==
The font name comes from the Japanese word ''meiryō'' ({{lang|ja|[[wikt:明瞭|明瞭]]}}) {{IPA|ja|meːɾʲoː|}}, which means "clarity", referring to ClearType making text written in Meiryo appear clearer on the screen. The Japanese spelling {{lang|ja|メイリオ}} is taken from the English pronunciation {{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|eɪ|r|i|.|oʊ}}; the actual Japanese spelling in [[katakana]] is {{lang|ja|メイリョウ}}. 

According to [[Eiichi Kōno]], the name was chosen for its exotic-sounding pronunciation and its compactness.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2年がかりの新日本語フォント「メイリオ」 |url=https://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/0605/16/news069.html |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=ITmedia NEWS |language=ja}}</ref>

Although it is a proportional font, the font name does not contain a 'P' to indicate this in Windows font lists, as with MS P Gothic ({{lang|ja|MS Pゴシック}}) and MS P Minchō ({{lang|ja|MS P明朝}}).

==Problems==

* At small sizes, dimensions of printed kanji characters are not even. However, small-size kanji rendering has been traditionally problematic involving trade-offs in legibility and other factors like spacing. That was fixed in Meiryo version 6 included with [[Windows 7]].<ref>[http://www.chinaui.com/news/2/2009-07-28/6599.html Windows 7中的新字体] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090731164641/http://www.chinaui.com/news/2/2009-07-28/6599.html |date=2009-07-31 }}</ref>
* Sized between 11 and 13 points (96 dpi), glyphs have inconsistent stroke weight without the activation of [[ClearType]]. Sometimes, especially on the [[Mac OS X]] and [[Linux platform]]s, these problems can sometimes be avoided by displaying fonts in semi-bold or bold as their normal (lightest) font weight.
* At small sizes, stroke reduction is not consistent with the methods used by other fonts such as [[MS Gothic]].
* Because of its compliance with Japanese Industrial Standard for encoding [[JIS X 0213]]:2004, variant characters have different stroke layouts from the ones used in older [[MS Gothic]] and other conventional fonts. To use older characters in a web page, for example, Meiryo needs to be activated manually.<ref>[http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=222960 加藤さん: メイリオ(Meiryo)とMS 明朝、MS ゴシック、Windows Vista - Fonts update<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> (MingLiU and PMingLiU version 5.03 follow the standards set by [[Ministry of Education (Taiwan)|Taiwan's Ministry of Education]] and the reference rendering used in [[Unicode]] documents, which also causes similar dissatisfaction among users.<ref>{{Cite web |title=安裝新細明體更新套件後字體異常 - PCDVD數位科技討論區 |url=https://forum.pcdvd.com.tw/showthread.php?t=508763 |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=forum.pcdvd.com.tw}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=MozTW 討論區 • 檢視主題 - 瀏覽Unicode時中文字變得很醜 |url=https://forum.moztw.org/viewtopic.php?t=14362&highlight= |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=forum.moztw.org}}</ref> On the other hand, [[MS Gothic]], MS PGothic, MS UI Gothic, [[MS Mincho]], MS PMincho can be updated to version 5.00, which include [[JIS X 0213]]:2004 support to match the characters used in Meiryo, and also incorporated [[JIS encoding|JIS]]90 Forms [[OpenType]] Layout Table for users preferring the old glyphs.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Microsoft |title=新しい Windows 11 OS へのアップグレード {{!}} Microsoft |url=https://www.microsoft.com/ja-jp/windows |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=Windows |language=ja-jp}}</ref> For [[Windows Vista|Vista]] users, Microsoft also offered an update to make [[MS Gothic]] and [[MS Mincho]] font families to use characters in [[JIS X 0208]]-1990.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Microsoft |title=新しい Windows 11 OS へのアップグレード {{!}} Microsoft |url=https://www.microsoft.com/ja-jp/windows |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=Windows |language=ja-jp}}</ref>)
* When italicized, only Latin characters are slanted, not [[CJK characters]] and kana. [[CJK characters]] use other methods of emphasis or quotation indication; thus differing from, for example, the typefaces of [[Romance languages]] (unrelated distinctions between cursive and non-cursive and other traditional writing styles do exist<!-- huh? -->). Nowadays, however, italicization is used in advertising but usually combined with other, common forms of emphasis, such as bold weight, exclamation marks, and, in Japanese, [[katakana]] use. Academic texts, for example, do not use italicized [[CJK characters]] as opposed to those in non-CJK languages, e.g. in traditionally [[Latin-1]] encoded European languages that use italics for things like inline quotations. Since these traditions of italicization do not exist in CJK, the decisions made for Meiryo is based on the existing general use. According to Microsoft, Meiryo uses a customized version of [[Verdana]] for italics instead of the [[oblique type|generic slanting method]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=wibjorn |title=Technical documentation |url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/ |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=docs.microsoft.com |language=en-us}}</ref> Although the font includes an [[OpenType]] table for italics, this feature only substitutes characters already included in the font, instead of applying transformation effects to the affected characters. Since Meiryo only has italic characters for Latin, Greek, [[Coptic alphabet|Coptic]], and [[Cyrillic characters]], it is an indication that [[Windows Vista]] does not use emulated italic effects if it uses a substitute font for italic effect but cannot find the correct glyph in the italic font. Similarly, most of the [[OpenType]] tables used in the font (except kern<!-- kerning? -->) only work if substitute glyphs are available inside the font.
* Characters for triple and quadruple dash box-drawing characters all have six dashes. Furthermore, all horizontal dash box-drawing characters have three dashes when <!-- one is? -->using [[OpenType]]'s half-width features.

==Awards==
Tokyo Type Directors club awarded 2007 Type design prize to [[Eiichi Kōno]], C&G Inc (Satoru Akamoto, Takeharu Suzuki, Yukiko Ueda), and [[Matthew Carter]] for the Meiryo font.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tdctokyo.org/awards/award07/typedesign_prize_e.html |title=Meiryo<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2008-01-17 |archive-date=2007-11-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071113113608/http://www.tdctokyo.org/awards/award07/typedesign_prize_e.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of CJK fonts]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}
*[http://www.microsoft.com/resources/design/ClearType.html ClearType page at Microsoft Design]
*[[:ja:メイリオ|メイリオ]] on the Japanese Wikipedia
*[http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=146749 Channel9 interview with Cleartype Team]
*[http://www.microsoft.com/design/Community/Detail.aspx Design Meets Technology]

== External links ==
*[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/meiryo Microsoft Typography]
*[http://www.microsoft.com/japan/presspass/addcont.aspx?addid=666 Sample at Microsoft Japan PressPass (information for journalists)]
*[http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/06/EndBracket/default.aspx It's Not Just Fonts]
*[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f7d758d2-46ff-4c55-92f2-69ae834ac928&DisplayLang=en Japanese ClearType fonts for Windows XP]

{{Microsoft Windows Typefaces}}
[[Category:Sans-serif typefaces]]
[[Category:Windows Vista typefaces]]
[[Category:CJK typefaces]]
[[Category:Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2008]]