# MantouSans fills the Traditional Chinese gaps in the Dela Gothic One typeface

> MantouSans is a single-weight Traditional Chinese supplement built from the Japanese typeface Dela Gothic One, adding 508 missing characters in its first release and adjusting full-width punctuation widths for Taiwan usage. It is a one-person project distributed under the SIL Open Font License, and the author says plainly that the first round of character work was not perfect.

**mant0u0/MantouSans** — 饅頭黑體，基於字型 デラゴシック (Dela Gothic One) ，修改而成的臺灣繁體中文補充版本。

- Repository: https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans
- Stars: 555 · Forks: 14
- Language: HTML
- License: OFL-1.1
- Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/mant0u0-mantousans

## What the project actually is: one Regular weight, one upstream typeface

MantouSans is a Traditional Chinese supplement derived from Dela Gothic One, the typeface that Japanese designer Artakana open sourced in 2021. The upstream project is linked in the README as the Dela Gothic font repository, and the relationship is stated as a derivative rather than a collaboration.

The upstream font is described as a sans-serif with a strong sense of weight, whose flat and heavy gothic design gives a sense of solidity and stability along with a strong visual effect. The README names the intended uses: headings, posters, video subtitles and packaging design. Subtitles are the case worth pausing on, because that is exactly where a missing character becomes visible in front of an audience rather than in a paragraph of body copy.

The repository itself is small and shows what kind of project this is. The top level entries are a Font/ directory holding the font files, an Img/ directory with the screenshots used in the README, OFL.txt, the README, an UpdateLog.md, and three working directories named Script/, Sources/ and Tools/. There is no build system, no test suite and no package manifest. The primary language is recorded as HTML because the README is the documentation and it is full of images.

So this is not a typeface family with weights and styles. It is one Regular weight, and its entire contribution is the set of characters it adds to an existing design.

The licence summary in the repository listing confirms the shape of the project as well, recording the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which is the correct licence for a modified font and the one the README discusses at length.

## The gap was real: Japanese character coverage does not match Taiwan usage

The reason the project exists is stated in two sentences and it is a more precise problem than fonts being incomplete in general.

The upstream typeface already covers up to the third level of the JIS kanji standard, which is a substantial set. But for Traditional Chinese users, characters are still frequently missing. A Japanese standard character set and a Traditional Chinese one overlap heavily but not completely, and the difference falls exactly on the characters people in Taiwan use every day and the ones Japanese publishing conventions omit.

That framing matters for judging the result. A font with poor coverage is a different failure from a font with good coverage for one locale and holes in another, and the second kind is invisible until you hit the character. The README describes the author as a user of the upstream typeface who decided to fill in the missing characters themselves.

The reference list backs up the scope of the work. Besides the upstream Dela Gothic repository, it names the jf 7000 open source character set as a source, a standard list of 4808 commonly used national characters used as the checklist for the first release, and a separate simplified Chinese project that covers many missing simplified characters.

The version history in the repository listing shows v1.013 published on 2026-09-12, v1.012 on 2026-04-18 and v1.011 on 2026-01-11. Those release dates also tell you this is not a finished project, since a typeface that is still incrementing its version number across years is still accumulating characters.

The UpdateLog.md file in the repository root is where the progress is tracked, and the README points readers to it explicitly for anyone who wants to see how far the supplementing has got.

## How the characters were made: FontCreator, disassembly and 508 additions

The method is documented, and it is unusual enough to be worth following closely.

The font was modified with FontCreator 14. For the first release, the author worked from a standard list of 4808 commonly used characters, and for each character missing from the upstream font, the existing kanji in the typeface were taken apart and reassembled into the new one. That is character disassembly, the practice of building a glyph out of the strokes of other glyphs, and it explains both the size of the achievement and its limits.

Disassembly works when the new character shares enough strokes with characters that already exist. A character composed of familiar parts can be assembled from parts the designer already has. A character whose structure is unlike anything in the font cannot, and that is where the quality falls short. The README is direct about this, saying that because this is the first round of supplementing work, the quality of the repair may not be very perfect, and inviting feedback with a promise to keep improving.

The count is stated for the first release: 508 characters were added. So the project started from a font already covering thousands of kanji and added several hundred more, roughly a tenth again on top of an already large set. That is a good ratio for hand work of this kind.

One more detail belongs to the same phase. The full-width punctuation was also adjusted, with the positions and widths of the symbols tuned to Taiwan usage conventions rather than left as the upstream font had them. Punctuation width is the kind of thing that is invisible until a line of Chinese text looks loosely spaced or tightly packed, and it is a strong signal that the author was reading the output as a typesetter rather than as an enthusiast.

## Getting the font: one TTF file and an install button

There is no package manager entry, no build step and no download page beyond the repository itself. The README links directly to the font file in the repository, a TTF named MantouSans-Regular.ttf in the Font/ directory, and the instructions that follow are three steps of the kind that only make sense for a desktop operating system.

Click the link and the file downloads. Open it and click the install button on the dialog that appears. Before doing so, check whether the font is already installed on the machine, and if it is, remove the old version first, because the README warns that a leftover installation can cause the font file to be read incorrectly.

That warning is more than boilerplate. Font installation systems on desktop operating systems cache fonts, and a new file with the same family and style name can be shadowed by a cached entry, which produces the confusing result where you have installed the update and nothing has changed. Removing first avoids it.

For anyone automating this, the file path is the only stable address in the project, and it is worth noting that the naming is direct: the family is Mantou Sans and the single style is Regular, so the file is named accordingly.

The README also makes the point that a font can be bundled with other software and even sold as part of it, which is covered in the licence terms below. For a web project, the same file is what you would serve with a CSS font-face declaration, though the README does not describe a web font distribution workflow.

## The phonetic annotation problem and the 1.007 release

There is one dated entry in the README that explains a specific problem and points at a solution outside this project.

Dated 2023-11-25, it says that Simplified Chinese users may want to try the version of the project that has already filled in many missing simplified characters. The reference is a separate simplified Chinese font, and the link is given in the references list too.

But the more interesting part of that entry is what was done about it inside MantouSans. At version 1.007, the phonetic annotation symbols from that simplified Chinese project were inserted into MantouSans, to avoid missing characters when typing Chinese with phonetic input.

This is a small design decision with a large practical effect. Phonetic annotation symbols are the small marks used to indicate pronunciation in Chinese text, and they sit above or beside characters rather than replacing them. A font that lacks those symbols renders the annotation as a blank box or drops it, which breaks the text in exactly the way that matters for a dictionary, a textbook or any educational text. Importing the symbols from an existing project rather than designing them was the pragmatic route.

It also tells you something about the relationship between the projects. MantouSans and the simplified Chinese font are not variants of one another, they cover different character sets, and the author of MantouSans treats the other project as a source of pieces rather than as a rival. The README's reference list makes the same point by listing it among the sources alongside the upstream font and the standard character list.

The README also credits several designers who gave technical guidance along the way, and a social media group, so the supplementing work was not done in isolation even though the character work itself is one person's effort.

## Licence terms: reserved names, mandatory OFL.txt and a ban on selling the file alone

The licence section is the most detailed part of the README, and it is worth reading closely because the terms are stricter than the usual open source boilerplate in one specific way.

The font is derived from Artakana's Dela Gothic One project under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, and the licence text is included as OFL.txt at the repository root.

The reserved names are named. Mantou Sans and the Chinese name of the font are reserved names for this project. That means a derivative cannot use them, and the rule is stated in both directions: modified fonts must be published under the SIL OFL, and they must not use the original font's reserved name. This is the standard mechanism that stops a derivative from presenting itself as the original, and it is why the upstream font being open source did not make the name free.

On usage, the terms are permissive. The font is free for everyone, including commercial use, and no notification to the original author is required. Distribution, sharing, bundling with other software and even selling it alongside other software are all allowed, with one condition: a bundled distribution must include the licence document file, OFL.txt. So a web application shipping the font in its assets needs OFL.txt in the same distribution.

The one hard prohibition is the last rule. Selling the font file on its own, in ttf or otf format, is strictly forbidden under the SIL OFL. Bundling is fine, standalone sale is not. That distinction is the reason the OFL exists as a licence rather than a permissive one, and it is worth knowing before you build a distribution model around the file.

These are the terms as the README states them, and they are a licensing note rather than legal advice. If your use is a commercial product, read OFL.txt yourself and check how the reserved name rule applies to a product name that happens to resemble the font's.

## Where this project is not the right answer

The first limit is scope of design. This is a supplement, not a typeface. One Regular weight exists, drawn from an upstream Japanese design. If you need a bold, a light, an italic or a second family, none of that is here, and a project that needs several weights will need several sources, or a different project.

The second limit is the method itself. Disassembling existing kanji to build new ones is efficient for a large batch of characters that share components, and it is where the quality will be uneven. The README says so, and a reader should treat the newer characters as drawn by an algorithm rather than by a designer, and check them in a real text before committing to a large body of copy.

The third limit is the maintenance model. The README states plainly that currently only one person is doing the supplementing work. That is not an argument against the font, it is an argument about what to expect: the update cadence is that of one person with other things to do, the release history shows roughly four to five month gaps between the last three versions, and the last push was on 2026-09-12. A project you depend on for a launch will need a fallback plan.

The fourth is locale. This is a Traditional Chinese supplement, aimed at Taiwan usage conventions, with the punctuation widths tuned for that. Simplified Chinese users are pointed to a different project, and characters used in Hong Kong or in mainland China are outside the checklist that drove the first release.

The alternative to weigh is a general purpose Traditional Chinese typeface from a larger foundry. The difference in approach is not quality in the abstract, it is the design intent. A foundry typeface is drawn as a coherent family with a Latin companion and a full weight range, and it costs money. MantouSans is a single licensed-free weight that inherits the look of an existing Japanese design and fills its gaps, and it costs nothing and gives you exactly one weight. For a poster, a subtitle or a title in a small amount of Chinese text, that trade is easy. For a publication that needs a family and a licence negotiation, it is not the trade.

## Conclusion

Adopt MantouSans if you set Traditional Chinese text and want the flat, heavy gothic look of Dela Gothic One without the missing glyphs that come with a font designed for Japanese. Do not adopt it expecting a typeface family, since the repository ships a Regular weight and the project is a character supplement rather than a full design. Verify first that the characters you need are present by checking the UpdateLog.md progress file, that your licensing arrangement satisfies the SIL OFL rule about including OFL.txt when you bundle the font, and that the single Regular weight is enough for your layout.

## FAQ

### What is MantouSans and what typeface is it based on?

MantouSans is a Traditional Chinese supplement to Dela Gothic One, the heavy flat gothic sans-serif that Japanese designer Artakana open sourced in 2021. The project supplements the missing characters for Taiwan usage and adjusts full-width punctuation widths to local conventions.

### How do I download and install MantouSans?

The README links directly to MantouSans-Regular.ttf in the repository's Font/ directory. Open the downloaded file and click the install button on the dialog. If the font is already installed on the machine, the README advises removing the old version first so the font file is not read incorrectly.

### How were the added characters made in MantouSans?

The font was modified with FontCreator 14, and for the first release the author worked from a standard list of 4808 commonly used characters, adding 508 missing ones by disassembling existing kanji in the typeface and reassembling them. The README says the quality of that first round may not be very perfect.

### Can I use MantouSans commercially and bundle it with software?

The README states the font is free for everyone including commercial use with no need to notify the original author, and that you may distribute, share, bundle with other software or sell it as part of another product. A bundled distribution must include the licence document file, OFL.txt, and selling the font file alone in ttf or otf format is forbidden.

### What are the reserved names for MantouSans?

The README names Mantou Sans and the Chinese name of the font as reserved names for this project. A modified or derived font must be published under the SIL Open Font License and must not use the original font's reserved name.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans/issues)
- [License: OFL-1.1](https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans/blob/main/LICENSE)
- [mant0u0/MantouSans on GitHub](https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans)
- [README](https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans/blob/main/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/mant0u0/MantouSans/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/mant0u0-mantousans