Subject: Re: How to start Chinese processing with Mac

From: John Delacour <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 23:00:13 +0000

Si Tatming,

  you write:-

>I plan to buy a Mac, but I know nothing about how to make a Mac have Chinese
>processing function. I plan to have a Quadra 610 with 8MB RAM and 250MB hard
>disk. Do I only need a Chinese Language Kit, if I just want to have some word
>processing and fax function with my Quadra? Or, I still need some more
>hardware and software to make Chinese word-processing work. Also, can I have
>some hints on getting some introduction (paper or electronic text) on Chinese
>word-processing with a Mac?

You must first of all have one of three things:- The Chinese Language Kit
as a (big) add-on to English System 7.1 OR Chinese System 7.1S (Simplified)
OR Chinese System 7.1T (Traditional).  The last two are not exactly
equivalent at the moment and have different ways of misbehaving :-)

There are very few text-editors (wordprocessors in a minute!) that can deal
with the Chinese two-byte characters and I would recommend getting
MiniWriter, Tex-Edit 1.8.1, Tex-Edit-HZ (translates 7-bit Chinese to 8-bit
Chinese in GB code) and JoliWrite.  I have discovered no other freeware or
shareware editor that can deal with Chinese.

For electronic mail Eudora can be set up so that you can input Chinese directly.

For Internet News, rnMac will accept Chinese input but is not really
WorldScript aware, so you have to do editing outside the program -- but you
can display sent or received articles in Chinese (GB)

As to word processors, only Nisus 3.4 and WordPerfect 3.0 are designed to
deal with Chinese etc.  Microsoft Word and MacWrite Pro are totally
ignorant --- this seems quite absurd to me, since MiniWriter takes up 39K
of space on my disk and can perform perfectly with Chinese whereas
MicroSoft Word gives you time to make the tea while it's loading and then
can do nothing!  WordPerfect 3.0 is still full of problems and I'm sure
others will agree that Nisus is the very best word-proceessor for the
Mac.....but bear in mind that a long-awaited program from Nisus called
"NisusWriter" is about to be released and it's probably worth waiting for
that.

There's lots of stuff at ifcss.org etc. for various processes such as
converting Trad code to simplified code, making PostScript files from 7-bit
HZ Chinese code etc. but I wont go into details here.

         John

---

From: John Delacour <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 11:36:55 +0000

Yucong,

You write:-

>Really, I have tried once, it doesn't seem work.What kind of version you got ?

I am writing this using Eudora v. 1.4.2 and Chinese operating system 7.1S.
I have two separate Eudora Settings files, one for when I'm running the
English system and another for the Chinese system and I load Eudora from
the appropriate settings file.  The only difference is that the Chinese
settings file is configured to use Beijing 12 (which is Geneva 12 for Latin
characters).

Why it works I have no idea and nor has Steve Dorner, the author of Eudora!
I wrote him last week and asked how he got Eudora to work with two-byte
characters and he professed total ignorance of the matter and had never
seen Eudora used with anything but the English system.

Nevertheless all the normal operations are possible; that is to say that
characters can be deleted or inserted in the normal way at any point in the
text, copying, cutting and pasting are possible, mixed Latin and Chinese
text is possible (Russian as well if you have the fonts installed)...in
short there is no problem at all that I have discovered.

>> Microsoft Word and MacWrite Pro are totally ignorant ---
>
>This is not quite true. I just use Microsoft Word 5.1 to input some Chinese
>and English in the same document.

On this subject I can only echo Pinghua's response - inputting is no
problem but editing is either impossible or a nightmare.

                                 John

---

From: wei-wang chen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 16:41:33 -0500

On Thu, 17 Mar 1994, Pinghua Young wrote:

> |> From: yucong phease <[email-masked]>
> |>
> |> >As to word processors, only Nisus 3.4 and WordPerfect 3.0 are designed to
> |> >deal with Chinese etc.  Microsoft Word and MacWrite Pro are totally
> |> >ignorant ---
> |>
> |> This is not quite true. I just use Microsoft Word 5.1 to input some Chinese
> |> and English in the same document.
>
> Have you tried inputing a few lines of Chinese?  Have you tried cut
> and paste?  Have you ...
>
Well, I use MS Word with Chinese system on my Mac and the results are
satisfactory.  I think the key is my Chinese system has the ability of
inputting 3 byte Chinese (adding a compressed space after each Chinese
character) and converting between 2byte and 3byte Chinese.

If you are like me, used to and using MS Word a lot and not willing to
invest extra time and effort in switching to other word processors, you
may want to find a Chinese system that knows 3 byte Chinese.

As a matter of fact, with 3 byte Chinese, you can literally have Chinese
on all the applications with minimum problems--unlike 2 byte Chinese that
has to find specific applications for compatibility.

Since the 3 byte Chinese systems I know of are all commercial products
and I do not have any affiliation with the companies, I do not want to
mention specifically the product names.  Plese ask me privately if you
would like to learn more about them.