25.09
25.09.2
I noticed that the browser font is different between 25.09 and 25.09.2, and it feels really weird. Also, even if I change the font in the card CSS, in 25.09.2 it no longer applies to Japanese text only. Why do you think that is?
I’m Japanese and not very good at English, so I’m asking GPT, but I still don’t really understand.
I’m using this, by the way:
font-family: “Futura”, -apple-system, sans-serif;
It’s a bit of a stretch, but maybe it’s related to the Android WebView bug or at least similar.
Try wrapping the template with a div like this:
<div lang="ja">
{{JapaneseText}}
</div>
Are you sure about those version numbers? It looks like the last version of desktop Anki you synced was 25.02.7.
Are these screenshots of the same collection – on the same device – taken close in time to each other? Is that the same note, and the same card made from that note?
It’s hard to tell whether you should expect a font to apply to certain text or all text with just a font-family line. It matters where you’ve got that CSS, and how you’re applying it to your templates.
Have any of those fonts been updated in your version of macOS recently?
“I’m not very familiar with CSS, so what is this doing?”
I had been trying different versions. I noticed it after switching back and forth several times between 25.02.7, 25.09, and 25.09.2 because of my previous question. For reference, 25.02.7 is also normal, just like 25.09.
Yes.
It applies to all text. For example, in 25.09.2, if I remove this font-family, only the English font changes. The Japanese font does not change.
I do not think there is any particular change.
Also, the browser font changes between 25.02.7(25.09) and 25.09.2, which feels very strange to me. I would also like to know why.
It tells the browser (which in our case is Anki) to treat the text as Japanese. It worked as a workaround for the bug I mentioned, so I thought it would help in this case too.
I tried it, but it still doesn’t work well. It seems like 25.09.2 might be unstable for me. I’ll stick with 25.09 for the time being.
We’re considering updating Qt in the next release, and this should be fixed as a result.
Amazing. So it really does seem like 25.09.2 is causing trouble. I can’t live without Anki, so I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
I asked about this before here: Font differences between 25.09 and 25.09.2
I tried 26.05b2, but it looks like the font issue still hasn’t been fixed.
For context, I’ve been staying on 25.02.7 the whole time, since 25.09 also doesn’t work well for me.
On the other hand, the image display delay issue discussed here seems to be improved in 26.05b2: Image display delay
Thank you to the engineers for that!
Would it be possible to look into the font issue as well?
For reference: Font differences between 25.09 and 25.09.2
Unfortunately it’s unlikely to be something we can fix if this was introduced by a Qt upgrade. Font rendering is complex and is handled by Qt WebEngine, which we have no direct control over.
So this is a pretty difficult issue to fix after all? It is really tough when Japanese font changes stop working. Wishing the engineers the best!
If my understanding is correct, the issue seems to be that you are depending on accidental behavior. Apparently, the behavior of previous versions of Anki was different than current versions, but this was by accident and not intentional. Both behaviors are equally correct, so there is no “bug” and there is nothing to fix.
Futura is not a Japanese character font, as I understand it. The fact that changing the CSS styling font to Futura (or any other non-Japanese character font) doesn’t affect the Japanese characters would seem to be the correct and expected behavior.
Have you tried specifying a Japanese character font in your CSS styling?
For example, I have the Babelstone Han font installed on my system, and changing the CSS styling to
font-family: "Futura", "Babelstone Han";
gives me a mix of Futura for the English characters and Babelstone Han for the Japanese characters. (I tested using the text you provided in your original post.)
I see. I tried using a different font, and both English and Japanese changed properly. So I guess there are various factors involved, whether it’s just a coincidence or some kind of bug.
By the way, what do you think about this screenshot? In the browser and the editor, the Japanese font looks thinner than before, which feels a bit uncomfortable. Is this something that can’t really be helped?
25.02
25.09
I see the difference, but the difference is extremely minimal and is not something worth focusing on, in my opinion. Instead, my recommendation is that you just ignore it.
If you want the characters to appear thicker on the cards, you can add something like font-weight: bold; to the CSS styling. But, this will affect both the English and Japanese characters.
Or, use a different Japanese font that has thicker characters by default.
Or, use a different English font that has thinner characters by default and then use font-weight: bold to make all the characters thicker.
But, again I recommend that you just ignore this font issue, if you can. Stop focusing on how your cards look, and just start studying.
I’ve been diagnosed with a developmental disorder, so maybe that’s why it bothers me so much. I’ll try to live with it until I get used to it, haha.
But if the engineers have time, I’d really appreciate it if they could look into it.
Although I don’t recommend doing it because I believe the results are not worth the time and effort, I thought of another workaround that would accomplish your goal:
If you use the HTML editor to edit your notes, putting Japanese and English into individual spans with class info:
<span class="japanese">今日はちょっと</span> <span class="english">tired</span>
<span class="japanese">だけど、</span><span class="english">still </span>
<span class="japanese">やることはある。</span>
You could specify different font weights for Japanese and English characters in the CSS styling. This would allow you to adjust how each type of character looks.
.japanese {
font-weight: 600;
}
.english {
font-weight: 400;
}
In the above example, English characters are the default “normal” weight (400), while Japanese characters are adjusted to be 600 which is heavier than “normal” but lighter than “bold” weight (700).
I think I’ll pass on this one, haha. Thank you for your reply.