files.html

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title: Files
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<div class="page-header">
  <h1>KanjiVG files</h1>
</div>

<h2 id="coverage">Coverage</h2>
<p>
  KanjiVG contains <a href="glossary.html#vector-graphics">vector
  graphics</a> which represent <a href="glossary.html#kanji">kanji</a>
  and other characters of the Japanese
  JIS <a href="glossary.html#jis-levels">"level one" and "level
  two"</a> standards.
</p>

<p>
  The vector graphics are based
  on <a href="glossary.html#schoolbook-fonts">Japanese schoolbook
  fonts</a> The formats of the kanji are those of Japan rather than
  China, thus the stroke shapes and the stroke order follow the
  Japanese example in all cases. Please see <a href="ref.html">our
  reference page</a> for exact details of the fonts and other
  references used as models.
</p>

<p>
  Since the data was made public around 2008, some additions have been
  made to the data, such that it now extends to a few characters which
  do not belong to the level one or two JIS standards. However, all
  the additions still follow Japanese standards.
</p>

<p>
  Other open source projects exist which cover traditional (Taiwan and
  Hong Kong) and simplified (mainland China and Singapore) Chinese
  characters. Please see the "related projects" link at the left of
  this page.
</p>

<h2>Format</h2>

<p>
  The KanjiVG file format is an extension
  of <a href="glossary.html#svg">SVG</a>. KanjiVG files can be opened
  by any SVG viewer or editor as-is. The shape of each kanji stroke
  (an individual line) is described as an
  <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html#PathData">SVG path</a>
  on an area of size 109x109 pixels. Since these
  are <a href="glossary.html#vector-graphics">vector graphics</a>,
  they can be rescaled to any convenient size.
</p>

<p>
  The SVG file is organized to reflect both the structure
  and <a href="glossary.html#stroke-order">stroke order</a> of the
  kanji.  See <a href="svg-format.html">SVG Format</a> for details.
</p>

<h2>Character models</h2>

<p>
  The main graphical data is is based
  on <a href="glossary.html#schoolbook-fonts">schoolbook fonts</a>.
  The exact fonts used as models for the KanjiVG graphical data are
  listed on the <a href="ref.html">References</a> page.
</p>

<p>
  There is also data for variations of characters and stroke
  order. See <a href="variants.html">Variants</a>.
</p>

<h2>Individual kanji files</h2>

<p>
In the repository for KanjiVG, each kanji has at least one file which
is given a name of the lower-case hexadecimal Unicode value of the
kanji, padded to five characters with zeros, followed by the
suffix <code>.svg</code>. 
</p>

<h2>Download files</h2>

<p>
The download XML files are created from the individual kanji files,
excluding the variant forms. The Python scripts to create the files
are in the repository.
</p>