明代出版業興盛，刻書用字往往正俗並列。明初宋濂等編《洪武正韻》（以下簡稱《正韻》，乃至梅膺祚《字彙》，均標識每字之規範。惟編字書者言之諄諄，而刻書者則視之藐藐，傳奇小說之屬尤甚。美國哈佛大學燕京圖書館藏有《新刻袁中郎先生評釋紅梅記》一書，為明代周朝俊撰，明末陳長卿所刻。該書為寫刻本，其書寫特色，或一字多形，正俗兼用，古今並陳，或同形而異構，楷書字族之重組；其俗字類型，或部件形近而混用，或因書寫習慣而增刪筆劃，或改易筆劃連接方式與部件組合位置，或因楷化來源不同，或因同音而假借，類型豐富而多樣。教育部《異體字字典》收錄傳統字書字形堪稱完備，然本書之字形仍多在未收之列，亦可見俗寫字形之豐富多樣。

There was a paradox, especially one of the features of literary tales, in the flourishing publishing industry during Ming dynasty that apart from the existence of compilers of ancient lexicons, e.g. Hongwu Zhengyun by Song Lian as well as Zihui by Mei Yingzu, which were commonly categorized as specifying standard types of each printed character, a convention in which both proper and popular words were mixed to engrave books was also constituted. Take the book, titled as Xinke Yuan Zhonglang xiansheng piping Hongmeiji, as an example of the latter. Engraved by Chen Changqing who were active during late Ming dynasty, the book, composed also by a Ming scholar, Zhou Chaojun, was well-known for its various characteristics as follows: one word with different fonts, mix of both proper and popular words, complex of ancient and modern styles, same form with adjusted structures, reorganization of the cluster of words in Kaishu, as well as popular characters of multiple written forms, which arose from situations including confusion of similar structures, habits of modulating the number of strokes of characters, borrowed characters by same pronunciation, etc. Even the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants compiled by the Ministry of Education does not collect a great number of characters occurred in the engraved book by Chen, and it seems to be able to prove a variety of forms for popular words in general.