For other Systems

Windows xp/server 2003 can support both simplified and tranditional Chinese, and most other Asian languages.

Step I - Enable East Asian language support.
This step will allow you to view Asian language in English or western Windows.

Depending on the selections you choose when installing Windows 2000/XP/server 2003, you may or may not have East Asian Languages installed. Follow these steps to check whether or not your computer supports East Asian languages.

• From Start -> Settings -> Control Panel
• Double-click Regional and Language Options
• Click on the Languages tab

• If "Install files for East Asian languages" under "Supplemental language support" section is checked, then you can skip to the step II.
• If the box is NOT checked, you need check on the box of "Install files for East Asian Languages", then click Apply button to do the install. You may need your Windows XP/2003 CD. Installing these files will allow you to use Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in your computer.

Step II - Add Services for Typing Chinese.
This will allow you to enter Chinese characters.

• After East Asian Languages pack is installed, click "Details" button under the Languages tab of Regional and Language Options.
• On the Settings tab of the new window, Click Add.
• In the "Input language" list, select Chinese (PRC) for simplified characters Chinese characters. You can add other input languages as well
• In the same window, from the "Keyboard Layout/IME" list, select:
• Chinese (PRC)- Chinese (Simplified) - Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0 for Simplified Chinese input.

These is the basic phoentic input method where you enter pinyin to obtain characters.

• Click "Apply" Now you can input Chinese. Here is a test.

Entering Chinese

•   Open a text editor, like Notepad.

•   Click on the IME icon on the right side of the taskbar of Windows. It is a [EN] icon.

•   Choose [CH] Chinese (PRC)

•   Enter "shanghai" and a space, Chinese character 上海 will appear in the notepad.

This is the simplest usage of IME.

Step III - Use Your Keyboard to Type Chinese Characters

• On your Toolbar at the right hand side, you should see a language bar, letters "EN" for English, "CH" for Chinese
• Click this button to change languages or use ALT+SHIFT key combination to switch between languages.
• By switching to the Chinese setting, you can now type Chinese characters in most software applications and browsers using phonetic and accent numbers(1-4).
• Use the ARROW KEYS to toggle between characters until you find the character you need.
• To temporarily switch between typing Chinese and English, you can simply press the SHIFT key on your keyboard.

*you can also download google pinyin software to input Chinese.

Windows Vista supports East Asian characters already, click here to find more instructions.

Instructions for Windows 2000

In order to display Asian characters on the browser, download and install the Microsoft Global Input Method Editors (IMEs) of the language(s) that you need. This is the system extension that provides the language support to your English Windows system when you are using Internet Explorer. Select the "with language pack" option if you do not have any related character set on your machine. The IMEs allow you to input CJK, while the language pack is the character set that you need to display the particular language. If you are an Office XP user, the Global IMEs will not work for you; you will need to install a new version of the IMEs for Office XP users.

Sometimes the system offers to download Asian fonts by default while viewing pages in those languages. Otherwise, update your system manually with these language support packs.
 

ChineseHour.com website is encoded in unicode (utf-8).  When viewed with the correct encoding and a suitable font, you should be able to see Chinese characters and English text in truetype fonts.

You can download the Chinese truetype font file zip package, unzip these font files and copy into your Windows/Fonts folder and then you should see Chinese as soon as you browse to http://www.chinesehour.com/.  It is simple and fast.

ChineseHour.com displays Chinese in unicode utf-8 format, so any device you have will need to support this encoding.  Ideally, set your browser's encoding to "auto-detect" but if you don't have this option, choose unicode (utf-8).

Mac OS X is a multilingual operating system which allows users to use languages other than the one selected during installation. In more recent versions of OS X, it is included with all installations of OS X. In older versions of OS X, such as 10.1 you had to install Languages Kits from Apple in order to read Chinese, Japanese or Korean on the Internet. The Language Kit for CJK contains WorldScript software known as scripts which support the encoding for the character set of a particular language. Each language needs a separate script.

1. Open System Preferences>International>Input Menu
2. Turn on Simplified Chinese.
3. Make sure "Show Input Menu in Menu Bar" is checked.
4. Close the System Preference window.
5. Go to the Input Menu (if you are using a US system, it should be a US flag icon) and select Traditional Chinese.
6. Click on the Input Menu again, you should see a list of 8 input methods at the bottom half of the pull down menu. Pinyin, BoPoMo (listed as Zhuyin), Cangjie are all there.

There are other free or commercial Chinese Input methods such as QIM, FIT for Mac OS X, you can find more.

For linux, freebsd, Netbsd ..... you can read these instructions.

Please contact us for help if you still have a problem.