typing chinese characters

meman
March 04, 2008, 09:20 AM posted in General Discussion

hi all im new to chinesepod and im trying to set up my computer to type chinese characters but im having no luck! iv followed the instructions in the technical help but when i press the shift and alt key i have no pop up screen or CH at the bottom. im running microsoft windows xp. could anyone please assist me further. thanx.

 

 

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bazza
March 04, 2008, 09:29 AM

You might need to switch on your language bar. Right-click on the taskbar, go to Toolbars and select Language Bar.

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meman
March 04, 2008, 09:38 AM

hi thanx for the reply i tried your idea but cant seem to see any option for language bar! any more ideas?

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RJ
March 04, 2008, 10:57 AM

Yes they are there - under help technical questions there is a section on displaying chinese characters and reading chinese characters. Here are the links. http://chinesepod.com/help/Technical%20Questions/podcasting# http://chinesepod.com/help/Technical%20Questions/podcasting# you can also search the web for windows ime and chinese language. Its straightforward computer stuff and the more recent version of windows you have the easier it has become.

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RJ
March 04, 2008, 10:59 AM

the link doesnt take you all the way - click tech questions and then writning or reading chinese characters. That should help you. RJ

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meman
March 04, 2008, 11:53 AM

thanx for your help guys iv sorted it out i was trying to type traditional Chinese and for some reason will only accept simplified but hey it works so cheers

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zeehao
March 04, 2008, 12:18 PM

http://mandarin.about.com/od/characters/ss/display_chars.htm About.com also show the procedure, above

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rich
March 04, 2008, 12:34 PM

I have found that on XP I am never able to initially CHANGE to Chinese character input with CTRL-Space of SHIFT-Space or CTRL-SHIFT-Space. To type in any window for the first time, I have to manually use the mouse to go click on the little icon on the language bar to change EN to CH. After that I can use those key combinations, but I find it so annoying to not be able to habitually press those keys and start typing.... and sometimes when you go down to the Language bar, you click wrong and then the focus isn't in the windows you were typing in, so when you go back to type you find it still isn't in Chinese, etc. etc. Any one have tips for me on this?

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RJ
March 04, 2008, 01:41 PM

I believe you can add traditional as well. I had it working on my last computer. Look and see there should be simplified and trad - you have to turn both on.

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sebastian
March 04, 2008, 02:09 PM

I recommend to get Google's pinyin. In my opinion it is much more user friendly than the input methods that come with Windows XP. And it lets you switch between simplified and traditional Chinese easily. Can be downloaded from Google's tool page: http://tools.google.com/pinyin/