You can keep a Chinese typeface and make its web-font downloads smaller by removing glyphs the site does not need, serving the result as WOFF2, and loading subsets only for matching text. The key is to preserve complete character coverage and the correct Simplified or Traditional Chinese regional forms: a subset that is too narrow can cause fallback or missing characters.
What actually makes a Chinese web font smaller?
Subsetting reduces the font binary by retaining only selected glyphs. The FontTools subsetter can select by text, a text file, Unicode ranges, or glyphs, and applies safe webfont-oriented size optimizations by default. See the FontTools subset documentation.
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WOFF2 is a delivery format, not a substitute for choosing the glyphs your site needs. web.dev says WOFF2 compresses 30% better than WOFF in its general format comparison; that is not a guaranteed saving for every Chinese font. Check the transferred size of your actual files. See web.dev’s font best practices.
CSS unicode-range helps the browser choose which declared font resource to request when text contains matching characters. It does not remove glyphs from a font file. For lower transfer size, use genuinely reduced subset files and declare the ranges each file covers.
Choose the right subset strategy
| Approach | Best fit | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
Provider-generated subsets with unicode-range |
A provider already serves subsets, especially for pages using multiple scripts or regions. | Inspect the CSS and actual file sizes. Recheck after moving from provider hosting to self-hosting; Google Fonts documents its CSS API and subset behavior at Get Started with the Google Fonts API. |
| Self-hosted WOFF2 subsets made with FontTools | You have font files that you are licensed to modify and distribute, and can define the site’s character coverage. | Incomplete inventories can cause fallback or missing characters. Use the installed FontTools version’s documentation for exact options. |
Google Fonts text= request |
Text is fixed and known, such as a logo, heading, or short label. | It is not a sound general solution for dynamic or unrestricted body text. Google says that in some cases a text= request can reduce file size by up to 90%; that is a conditional maximum, not an expected result for Chinese body text. See Google Fonts API documentation. |
| Regional font subset | The site’s content belongs to a known Chinese writing region. | Coverage for another region may be needed if the audience or content spans regions. Adobe documents regional options for Source Han Sans in its Version 2.005 ReadMe. |
Before choosing, account for the characters shown, Simplified or Traditional Chinese locale, number of styles and weights, files actually requested, whether text changes, and the font’s license and hosting terms.
Plan for Chinese regional glyph forms
Chinese font coverage is not only about whether a code point exists. Glyph forms can differ by region, so a subset that contains the character but uses the wrong regional design may still look incorrect. Adobe’s Source Han Sans documentation describes separate subsets for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong), Japanese, and Korean, intended for users who need a specific region’s glyphs and want a smaller footprint. It also notes that those regional forms do not require locl to obtain them.
Rank #2
- 【What You Get】 10 notebooks which practice both Chinese characters and Hanyu Pinyin, 14 sheets/28 pages each (except front and back covers).
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Decide whether each page needs Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese for Taiwan, Traditional Chinese for Hong Kong, or more than one. If a site serves multiple locales, build and select coverage accordingly rather than assuming one narrow subset works for every visitor.
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Build and serve subsets safely
- Inventory text and font files. Gather the site’s real characters, including punctuation and names, and establish how user-generated or future text should be covered. Identify the exact font, face, weights, and license. FontTools accepts text, text files, Unicode ranges, and glyph selections as subset input.
- Set the subset scope. Use exact characters only for text that is genuinely fixed. For pages with broader or changing content, use a complete expected character inventory or broader regional subsets. FontTools may ignore requested characters absent from the source font by default; use its documented fail-on-missing option when a missing character should stop the build.
- Generate webfont output. For example, the command shape below selects from a text file and writes WOFF2. Adapt it to the source font, inventory, license, and installed FontTools version; it is not a validated command for every font format or collection.
fonttools subset SourceFont.otf
--text-file=site-characters.txt
--flavor=woff2
--output-file=site-subset.woff2- Declare each file accurately. Add an
@font-facerule for each subset with the correct family, style, weight, source, andunicode-range. The range should describe what that file serves; it does not make an unsubsetted source file smaller. - Validate on production-like pages. Test representative text and punctuation for every served Chinese region. Look for missing-character fallback, incorrect regional glyphs, broken shaping, and font files requested when they are not needed. Compare actual network transfers for the pages and styles you care about; savings vary with the font, retained glyphs, weights, compression, and delivery pattern.
Check licensing and style trade-offs
Confirm that the font license allows both the intended modification and self-hosting before distributing generated files. If the site uses several weights or styles, variable fonts may consolidate them, but web.dev notes that a variable font is often larger than one individual static style. The benefit depends on replacing multiple styles, so variable fonts are a separate style-count decision, not a replacement for glyph subsetting. See web.dev’s variable fonts guidance.
Quick Recap
Best Value
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Rank #4
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- Package Include: 1 PCS of chinese character practice book of Song ci, Sheet size: 25 x 16 cm (9.84 x 6.30 inch); 24 Sheets(48 Page), Character size 0.8 x 0.8 cm.
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