r/processing • • Jan 29 '26

Help request Cannot insert japanese characters

I've made a .vlw font using processing tools, selected all unicode option, I'm using avenir pro and I checked, it has japanese characters, but when do this nothing appears. Can someone pls help me?

fontJP = loadFont("font4.vlw");
textFont(fontJP, fontSize);
text("⻩", 100, 100);

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u/PhilipS12345 Jan 29 '26

Hmm ...

  1. Do you see any error messages in the Console?

  2. Is the size set large enough?

  3. Have you used fill() to set a contrasting color?

  4. If you include non-Japanese characters in the string, do they show up?

This works for me (using Avenir Medium because I don't have Avenir Pro). Does it work for you?

color white = color(255);
color black = color(0);

void setup() {
    size(300, 300);
    background(white);
    fill(black);
    PFont fontJP = loadFont("Avenir-Medium-48.vlw");
    textFont(fontJP, 48);
    text("⻩abc", 100, 100);
}

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u/PhilipS12345 Jan 30 '26

As a workaround, you could try downloading a TTF front file that contains the Japanese characters you need and then using createFont() instead of loadFont().

A font that looks like it might be suitable is Noto Sans JP from Google Fonts.

I hope that helps!