Chinese IMEs

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frank
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Chinese IMEs

Postby frank » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:55 am

Hi all,

I'm struggling with the Chinese IMEs for [b]traditional[/b] characters.
The ones i found for simplified characters don't pose a problem: one can put in pinyin, and then select from a list of characters. But the IMEs i found for traditional characters are based on zhuyin (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) and that's a bridge too far for me.
Does anybody know an IME for traditional characters, but which handle pinyin?

Thanks in advance.

Frank

anders
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Postby anders » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:09 pm

MS Windows XP does it. You have to use the XP CD, and then you install the "complicated languages support" from the Control Panel|Country-specific etc.

The Traditional IME differs from the simplified one in at least one disturbing way. In Simp you hit space after the pinyin input to see suggestions and then to accept, but in Trad you use Enter. And I really would like to have the suggestions shown in a larger font in all IME's.

If when copying a text to W XP/Word XP, I find a character I don't know (that's still the majority :( ), I sometimes find it faster to switch to Japanese and use the IME Pad|Handwriting function than looking it up in a dictionary.
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frank
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Postby frank » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:38 pm

Hi Anders, all,

Thanks for the reply.
MS Windows XP does it.
K, i'll keep that in mind for later (still Windows 2000 here, for the time being).
The Traditional IME differs from the simplified one in at least one disturbing way. In Simp you hit space after the pinyin input to see suggestions and then to accept, but in Trad you use Enter. And I really would like to have the suggestions shown in a larger font in all IME's.
The first few months when i started to type in (simplified) characters, i had to use a big font (18). Recently i shifted to 12 and that's fine with me now. Also the suggestions in the simplified IMEs are big enough.
But when toying with the IME for traditional characters i have to put my nose (and glasses) against the screen in order to distinguish the various traditional characters. Bigger seized characters in the suggestion lists would indeed be an improvement :-).

Any ideas for Windows 2000?

Frank

anders
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Postby anders » Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:00 am

I think that W2K should have it as well. IIRC, W ME doesn't, however, support Chinese for Word, but "only" for mail and Internet.

Try this site.
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Flaminius
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Postby Flaminius » Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:59 am

But when toying with the IME for traditional characters i have to put my nose (and glasses) against the screen in order to distinguish the various traditional characters. Bigger seized characters in the suggestion lists would indeed be an improvement :-).
Now you know why I need strong lenses for my glasses.

yurifink
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Postby yurifink » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:23 am

frank---
But the IMEs i found for traditional characters are based on zhuyin (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) and that's a bridge too far for me.
Zhuyin is not so difficult; here are tables zhuyin-pinyin

http://yazyk.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t= ... highlight=

Regards
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frank
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Postby frank » Sun Aug 07, 2005 3:21 am

Zhuyin is not so difficult; here are tables zhuyin-pinyin
[+ url]
Hi Yurifink,

Well, i found the tables a bit lower in the thread. Thank you very much!! Gonna try it again.

Frank

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Sat Sep 10, 2005 5:44 pm

Frank, I’ve never been able to make the IME for traditional graphs (繁體字) work, but tinkering around I’ve found a solution that works perfectly for me. I simply write everything in the IME for the simplified graphs (简体字) used in the People’s Republic, and then, using the toggle switch which appears on the tool bar (in one of two forms, «简» or «繁»), I simply convert. Thus, for example, I mark «台湾», click on «繁», and voila ! – I get «臺灣». 没事 ! I do have, however, a different problem, regarding which I should like to ask fellow Agorists to advise : the default setting for the Chinese IME’s is the SimSun font, which I find aesthetically unappealing. After writing the graphs I need I always convert them to PMingLiU, but I should be most grateful if someone could tell me how to reset the IME, so that I get that font in the first place….

多谢

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

anders
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Postby anders » Sun Sep 11, 2005 4:34 am

Assuming a Swedish Word XP,
Open the Format menu --> Formatmallar ... (used to be Styles in English; those Normal.dot etc. things). A menu of styles appears (to the right for me). Hover the mouse pointer over Normal, and a down arrow appears to the right of the name. Click that arrow, and then click Ändra (Change). Then click Format, Teckensnitt (Font), and there's a box for picking your default Asian font.
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frank
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Postby frank » Sun Sep 11, 2005 5:55 pm

the default setting for the Chinese IME’s is the SimSun font, which I find aesthetically unappealing. After writing the graphs I need I always convert them to PMingLiU, but I should be most grateful if someone could tell me how to reset the IME, so that I get that font in the first place….
Hi Henri,

Thanks for the remarks and advice.
I share your opinion about the Dimsun (LOL, i'll leave this typo, i mean Simsun, of course) font, but i noticed that the more beautiful PMingLiu cannot handle all simplified characters. I don't remember which character exactly, but it must have been a frequent one, given my level of Chinese at this moment.
For what it is worth, i was once told that SimSun is perfect for simplified characters, while PMingLiu is normally used for traditional ones.

Thanks again,

Frank

M. Henri Day
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Postby M. Henri Day » Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:15 pm

Frank, may I ask you to check that one out again ? As far as I know, the graphs available to the PMingLiU font, being the standard Unicode characters, differ in no way from those available to SimSun - at any rate, using the IME, I've never encountered one that could not be converted from the latter to the former. Before I had access to the IME, I was forced to utilise the laborious process of going via the «insert symbol» function ; even there I had no difficulty in writing what I wished to write (allthough it did take a great deal of time !) in PMingLiU....

Henri

PS : By the way, were you able to use the conversion function I mentioned to get from simplified to traditional graphs ?...
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?


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