When Latin font is specified in a text box, etc., serious input delays occur when Japanese text is entered with IME

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rakunavi
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When Latin font is specified in a text box, etc., serious input delays occur when Japanese text is entered with IME

Post by rakunavi »

Hello all,

When inputting Japanese text with IME by specifying a Latin font in a comment text box, etc., I have found that the longer the paragraph, the greater the delay in reflecting keystrokes on the screen. This is a serious level of delay that makes key input operations confusing.

When Japanese text is input by specifying a Latin font such as Arial font, the system standard Japanese fonts such as MS Mincho or MS Gothic are used instead because there are no Japanese glyphs in Latin fonts. This issue occurs only when a Latin font is specified, not when a Japanese font is specified.

If you install PDF-XChange Editor in a Japanese environment, the default font setting for text comments, etc. is Arial, so you will encounter this issue unless you change the font setting. The same issue occurs not only with comments such as text boxes and Sticky Note, but also with base content text as long as Latin font is specified. In Acrobat, there is no particular delay in keystrokes when entering Japanese text with Latin font specified.

In the verification video, the first half of the video shows that Japanese input with IME is delayed when a Latin font (Arial) is specified in a text box, while the second half of the video shows that input is immediately reflected when a Japanese font (MS PGothic / MS Pゴシック) is specified in a text box. Even if Latin font is specified, the input delay is not significant when the paragraph length is short, such as when a new line is inserted.

  • Animation.gif
  • sample.zip
For reference, the phrases typed in the video are as follows

  • text.png
I have confirmed that the issue also occurs in an environment where a Japanese language pack is installed on an English version of Windows 10. The Japanese font families in the English environment are MS Gothic and Yu Gothic, as shown in the figure below.

  • japanesefont.png
Hoping that the above information will be of some help to you.
Thank you so much for your continued support.

Best regards,
rakunavi

- PDF-XChange Editor Plus Version: 10.3.1 build 387
- OS Version: Windows 11 Home 23H2 Build 22631.4037
- PC Model: Lenovo IdeaPad C340-15IWL, HP All-in-One 22-c0xx
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Dimitar - PDF-XChange
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Re: When Latin font is specified in a text box, etc., serious input delays occur when Japanese text is entered with IME

Post by Dimitar - PDF-XChange »

Hello rakunavi,

Thank you for your detailed problem report.

I will ask our developers to take a look at this case and offer a solution for this issue.

Regards.
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rakunavi
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Re: When Latin font is specified in a text box, etc., serious input delays occur when Japanese text is entered with IME

Post by rakunavi »

Hello Dimitar, thank you for contacting developers.

This is follow-up information.

As I showed in the video at the beginning of this topic, I was able to show that I was experiencing typing delays in the environment of the verification user account, but I had been frustrated that I could not show it in the video because I was experiencing much worse delays in the environment of the account I use on a daily basis. So, I continued to verify and have finally found that enabling the "Use previous version of Microsoft IME" option caused the severe input delay that I really wanted to convey.

The Microsoft Japanese IME has been updated to a newer version since Windows 10 version 2004 (Windows 10 October 2020 Update) and is still available in Windows 11, but many users are still using the old IME due to a number of bugs in the beginning. The fact that there is a setting in the Windows preferences to "Use previous version of Microsoft IME" shows the strong popularity of the old version.

  • figure.png
In the verification video, the keystroke response is verified in turn for the following three combinations of IME version and text font in the text box.

  1. Newer versions of Microsoft IME and Latin font (Arial)
  2. Previous version of Microsoft IME and Latin font (Arial)
  3. Previous version of Microsoft IME and Japanese font (MS PGothic/MS Pゴシック)
The verification itself is exactly the same as in the video at the beginning of this topic. Two sentences each for a long paragraph and a new sentence were entered for all three combinations. In other words, a total of 12 sentences are entered.

  • Animation.gif
Please confirm that with the second combination, the characters are displayed on the screen after a considerable delay after the key is entered. In fact, the time between when you start typing and when the final converted character appears on the screen is not much different between the first and the second combination. However, with the second combination, the text before conversion (displayed with underlines) is not displayed at all during the input process. This is what makes it feel slower. Of course, if you input very slowly, the input process will be displayed, but it is not a speed that can be tolerated in practical use.

The following video shows the change in behavior before and after the issue just occurred by entering repeated sentences for the second combination (with Previous version of Microsoft IME and Latin font (Arial)). Please confirm that as paragraphs get longer, the underlined text-in-progress display gradually breaks off in the middle and eventually the underlined text indicating the text before conversion is no longer displayed altogether.

  • Animation2.gif
Best regards,
rakunavi
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Re: When Latin font is specified in a text box, etc., serious input delays occur when Japanese text is entered with IME

Post by Dimitar - PDF-XChange »

Hello rakunavi,

Thank you for the additional information provided.

I can't reproduce this myself, but our developers have the right tools to analyze such issues, so they will catch the problem.

Regards.