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The kanji 令 Rei, as in 令和, can apparently be written in a pleasantly different
way. One is more of a computer font, the other is more handwritten. The stroke
order is the same, but it's quite a transformation though. Why isn't the
second glyph available in computer fonts? Can one take such liberties with
other characters when handwriting them?
[![令](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xsf6t.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xsf6t.jpg)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-11T14:22:52.507
92926
2023-02-23T13:42:03.240
2023-02-23T13:42:03.240
18772
18628
question
kanji calligraphy
Rei 令 handwritten variant
The glyph 令 has, generally, three distinct regional forms:

[![The three forms of
令](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SxF9i.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SxF9i.png)

The type with マ and a dotted bar is used in mainland China, the type with マ
and a horizontal bar is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam, while the
traditional prescriptive dictionary form is currently considered correct in
Japan and Korea. I am showing all three by applying the different regional
versions of Source Han Serif font.

However, it would be incorrect to assume that such alternate forms are never
available within one region itself. In fact, the "Mainland" form (what you
refer to as "calligraphic") is available in the Moji-Joho character collection
in Japan (because it is registered somewhere for a personal name or a place
name, as exemplified by the
[Koseki](https://houmukyoku.moj.go.jp/KOSEKIMOJIDB/M03.html?1641914601547)
database), and thus should be, at least in theory, accessible by a sequence of
codepoints U+4EE4 U+E0102, where 4EE4 is general 令 and E0102 is an
[Ideographic Variation
Selector](http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr37/tr37-12.html).

Well, in theory. Because the only font I know that would actually provide that
is the font of the Moji-Joho database itself,
[IPAmjMincho](https://moji.or.jp/mojikiban/font/). (And the [Hanazono-
AFDKO](https://github.com/cjkvi/HanaMinAFDKO) fonts, which support so many
things it's not even surprising). So, here they are:

(令 令 - these look different with a proper font)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/khaQa.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/khaQa.png)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-11T15:29:01.443
92927
2022-01-12T11:40:22.510
2022-01-12T11:40:22.510
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92926
answer