Setting fonts for CJK (Asian) and Latin (Western) text separately

Suggestions Document editor
,
1

Imported from UserVoice

Author: Midtail Min

Problem Description: The current font system in OnlyOffice Desktop Editors only allows a single font to be applied to a text selection or style. This is a critical limitation for users in CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) regions.

In CJK typography, it is standard and essential practice to specify one font for CJK characters (e.g., SimSun, Source Han Serif) and a different font for Latin/Western characters (e.g., Times New Roman).

Currently, if a user sets the font to Times New Roman (which lacks CJK glyphs), the CJK characters are rendered using an uncontrollable system-level font fallback (e.g., SimSun on Windows, PingFang on macOS, Noto Sans CJK on Linux). This fallback font is often not the user’s desired CJK font, leading to poor and inconsistent typography.

Proposed Solution (Desired Behavior): Implement the same functionality found in Microsoft Word and other major word processors:

In the main Font settings dialog, and most importantly, in the Style Modification settings, please provide two separate font selection fields:

Asian text font: (To be applied to CJK characters)

Latin text font: (To be applied to Latin characters)

Example Use Case: A user should be able to define the “Normal” style as:

Asian text font: 宋体 (SimSun)

Latin text font: Times New Roman

When the user types mixed text like “这是一个 test”, the editor should intelligently render “这是一个” using 宋体 and “test” using Times New Roman, all while being part of the same style.

Why this is critical: This is not a minor cosmetic feature; it is a fundamental requirement for academic, professional, and business document creation in East Asia. The inability to control CJK and Latin fonts separately makes OnlyOffice unsuitable for serious adoption in this very large market.

Using an “all-in-one” font (like Microsoft YaHei or Source Han Sans) is not a valid workaround, as it locks the user into a fixed CJK/Latin pairing and removes essential typographical control.

Thank you for considering this crucial feature.

Attachment is a screenshot of the font settings dialog box of MS Office.

Feature Request: Separate Font Settings for East Asian and Latin Text
3

I would like to request a feature that allows users to configure separate fonts for East Asian text and Latin text in ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors.

Currently, when I select an entire document and change the font, all selected characters may be changed to the same font. This makes it difficult to maintain different fonts for Chinese characters, English letters, and numbers.

For example, I would like to use:

  • East Asian text: DFKai-SB (BiauKai)
  • Latin text and numbers: Times New Roman

Proposed Solution

Please add separate font settings for East Asian text and Latin text, similar to the functionality available in WPS Office and Microsoft Word.

Ideally, users should be able to configure both fonts in the advanced font settings or document styles. When selecting the entire document and changing the font, ONLYOFFICE should preserve the appropriate font for each character group instead of applying one font to all characters.

Benefits

  • Saves time when formatting multilingual documents.
  • Preserves the intended formatting of Chinese and English text.
  • Improves compatibility with DOCX documents created in WPS Office and Microsoft Word.
  • Makes ONLYOFFICE more convenient for users working with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Latin scripts.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

7

Hi @hieungo1001, welcome to the community!

Thanks for the suggestion — we’ve merged your post into this topic since the same request is already tracked on our side and accepted as an enhancement (track number — 78003). There’s no exact timeline for it yet.

Feel free to vote and follow this topic for updates — we’ll update the thread once there’s progress.