Chinese in Windows

Introduction

The best place to start is Pinyin Joe's Chinese Computing Help Desk, a well-organized and informative guide to using Chinese on Windows XP and Vista.

For a "quick and dirty" guide to installing and using Chinese and Japanese on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, see: http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/

See also Microsoft's What is an IME (Input Method Editor) and how do I use it?

Users with Windows 2000 and XP should download and install Microsoft's GB 18030 Support Package.

Microsoft Office 2000/XP/2003 comes with basic multilingual capabilities, including Chinese. The Office Resource Kits contain information about working with language settings. You can also add the corresponding Proofing Tools, which include a selection of additional Chinese fonts, utilities, and input methods.

There are various commercial software extensions that add Chinese capabilities to Windows systems. Here are some of the most popular:

Running Windows

Parallels Desktop

For Intel-based machines only. See: http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/

VMware Fusion

For Intel-based machines only. See: http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

Virtual PC

For G3, G4, and G5 machines only. See: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx

Crossing Platforms

View, Navigate & Convert is the only cross-platform document conversion utility that works with double-byte Chinese text.

Microsoft Office Documents

From Windows: If you need to handle Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents created by any version of Office for Windows on a regular basis, Office 2004 and above is the best solution. Word 2001 and above can read files created by any version of Word for Windows, including the localized Chinese versions of Windows 95 and above.

To Windows: Office 2004 and above includes a "Compatibility Report" feature that is designed to address this problem. It also installs copies of the standard Chinese system fonts for Windows. Word 2000 and above for Windows can read documents created on Word 2001 and above for Mac OS. You must name the file according to Windows file-naming rules and use the .doc extension in the filename. Chinese text is not a problem.