Why different fonts on different devices?

[mmm333]

I’m mostly using WaniKani on my mobile device, so I’m more used to the font there. But when I occassionally switch to PC for reviews, it feels like a completely different font, but only since I installed the Japanese Keyboard IME for Windows 10! The PC browser font feels more bold and horizontally strechted compared to the smartphone browser font (and the PC font before that installation) now. Does the IME keyboard somehow reconfigure displayed Japanese fonts in my browser? To assure myself that I’m not going crazy, I made two pics from both devices and cropped them:

Font on Smartphone:

Font on PC:

DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCES? (whispers) do you?
Sadly, I don’t have an image to compare to from before I installed the IME keyboard, so maybe the thing about the keyboard is just me. But the fonts are definitely not the same.
Am I going mad over a font change, feeling sympathy for the smartphone font and slowly developing deep hatred over the PC font, accussing it for any wrong answers I made in reviews?

Maybe.

[athomasm]

@mmm333

But when I occassionally switch to PC for reviews, it feels like a completely different font

That’s because it is a different font.

@mmm333

Am I going mad over a font change, feeling sympathy for the smartphone font and slowly developing deep hatred over the PC font, accussing it for any wrong answers I made in reviews?

You’re not going mad, but if your accuracy depends on text using the exact same font then you will likely have tons of issues down the road with recognition. Especially if you ever encounter fonts that emulate a handwritten style or actually encounter handwritten kanji because they aren’t going to look 100% like the fonts in your screenshots. I would suggest you use something like this to eliminate this crutch of needing one specific font to be accurate:

Jitai (字体): The font randomizer that fits

[Jitai logo] What is Jitai? One thing that can become a bit of a problem when using WaniKani is that you are only ever exposed to one font. What this means is that if you ever run into a kanji in the wild, even if you know it, you might not recognize it. Especially with handwriting and calligraphy and all that jazz being around, it helps a lot to get in a bit of training on fonts that aren’t Meiryo. That’s where Jitai (字体) comes in! When you’re doing reviews, Jitai automatically sets the font …

[alo]

Default Windows 10 installation includes Yu Gothic. If you install the IME, it probably switched in Meiryo.

c.f.

Font suddenly changed

Compared to yesterday, the font during reviews looks different today, using Windows 10 and Firefox. Does anyone else have this issue? I don’t remember if there was a windows or Firefox update, but i checked with Chrome, and the font was the same, it’s like this. [image] I think something similar happened a year or 2 ago, but back then a lot of people were affected and it was due to WK changing something. IIrc the solution back then was to set the font for japanese in the Firefox settings to M…