Subject: easy way to print Chinese files
From: [email-masked] (Stephen G Simpson)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1991 03:27:18 GMT
Newsgroups: psu.math.general

After I installed Chinese xterm and Chinese vi on the Math Department
Sparcstations, several people learned how to use this software to
create and edit Chinese files.  But now some of you have been asking
me how to print these files on our system.

At this moment, the easiest way to print Chinese on our system is to
use Poor Man's Chinese TeX.  You simply create a TeX file, and near
the beginning of the file you give the commands \input pmCs,
\beginchinese, \bigCtrue.  So your TeX file can look like this:

\input pmCs
\beginchinese
\bigCtrue
.... 
Here we have
mixed Chinese, English, and mathematical text,
with normal TeX formatting commands.
....
\bye

You can process this file as usual with tex, latex, amstex, lamstex,
or whatever.  Once you have a DVI file, you can preview it with xdvi
or print it with dvips.

Note: Some old-fashioned DVI previewers and print drivers are not
8-bit clean and therefore cannot process Chinese characters.  Xdvi and
dvips are definitely OK, dvitool is definitely not OK, and I am not
sure about dvi2ps or dvialw -- if you test them, please let me know
the results.

The \bigCtrue command can be omitted if you don't mind smaller
characters.  For more information about Poor Man's Chinese TeX, read
the man page ("man pmc") and look in the directory
/usr/local/doc/tex-inputs/pmc.  Unfortunately, we are now supporting
only GB character codes and simplified (mainland) characters.  Later,
if I can obtain suitable fonts, we will support ET/BIG-5 codes and
traditional characters.

I also have some utilities to print unformatted (non-TeX) Chinese
files, and to convert between various Chinese character coding
methods.  If you are interested, please let me know.  If there is
enough interest, I may install this stuff in /usr/local.

Incidentally, some cxterm users were having a problem using the F1 key
to switch from Chinese to English input.  This problem has now been
corrected.

Please let me know if any other questions come up.  As I said before,
I want this software to be easy to use and trouble free.

Stephen G. Simpson               [email-masked] 
Department of Mathematics        +1 814 863-0775
Pennsylvania State University    home: +1 814 238-2274
University Park, PA 16802