Editorial & Formatting Guidelines
Rare Character Assembly Rules
Whether using Big5 or Unicode, digitizing Buddhist texts often requires handling characters missing from standard character sets.
The “Assembled Rare Character” system represents unencoded characters in plain text, eliminating the need to install custom font files or images. This ensures effortless reading and distribution without consuming local user-defined font space.
This method uses six basic half-width operators (*, /, @, -, +, ?) and two sets of delimiters: () and [].
Examples:
| Symbol | Description | Example |
| * | Horizontal connection | 明＝日*月 |
| / | Vertical connection | 音＝立/日 |
| @ | Inclusion | 因＝囗@大 or 閒＝門@月 |
| – | Component removal | 青＝請-言 |
| -+ | Component removal and replacement | 閒＝間-日+月 |
| ? | Unidentified or unmapped radical | 背＝(?*匕)/月 |
| () | Grouping / operational delimiters | 繞＝組-且+((土/(土*土))/兀) |
| [] | Character boundary delimiters | 羅[目*侯]羅母耶輸陀羅比丘尼 |
Note 1: Full-width Bopomofo, punctuation, and English characters may also be used as components when needed.
Note 2: Radical components may render differently depending on the font (e.g., KaiTi vs. PMingLiU).
References (in Chinese):
- For standardized rare characters in our archive, see “Basic Common Glyphs of the Taisho Tripitaka” (MS Word format).
- CBETA Rare Character Processing
- Character Issues and Solutions in Buddhist Canons
