Converting from Simplified to Traditional and back with macOS.

[imron]

So I recently upgraded to the latest version of macOS, and while playing around in the system preferences configuring some keyboard shortcuts I noticed a very interesting keyboard combination:

 

Ctrl-Shift-Command-C - Convert Text to Traditional Chinese

Ctrl-Option-Shift-Command-C Convert Text to Simplified Chinese

 

And sure enough, if you have some Chinese text in some text field or text editor you can select it and then transform it to and from Simplified/Traditional with a single shortcut.

 

I haven't checked how good a job it does, but on the surface level it appears to work ok.

[AdamD]

Great tip! As far as I can tell it works just as the iOS function works (tap and hold, select text, select 简<—>繁). Handy for when you're talking to people in different territories and write a whole slab of text in the wrong standard.

 

Another new feature in Sierra is tapping the caps lock key as a quick way to switch between Chinese and English:

 

- Open System Preferences

- Select Keyboard

- Tick the Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from English box

- Select your Chinese keyboard, then hit caps lock to switch languages (hold it down for one second to engage caps lock as normal)

 

If you have Traditional and Simplified Chinese keyboards enabled, this is miles better than the default method which picks a keyboard totally at random.

[imron]

this is miles better than the default method which picks a keyboard totally at random.

If you are talking about the command-space shortcut to change keyboards, it doesn't do this, it cycles between the last two input methods used.

 

You can also hold down command and then tap and release the space bar (without letting go of command) then a list of available input methods is displayed on the screen and you can keep tapping space to cycle through them.