Note how because all the characters above are mono-spaced and fit within the same sized box the text on the slide gives the appearance of a grid. Grid layouts are actually a common typographic convention in East Asian scripts.

When half-width or proportionally-spaced characters are introduced, there is a possibility of this grid being corrupted, but typographic devices are available to provide several possible solutions to this.

You can experiment with various types of grid setting using CSS on the following web pages:

• Simplified Chinese

• Traditional Chinese

• Japanese