Pinyin with Characters

[danqi]

I am looking for a tool that adds Pinyin above or below the characters in a text, thus making it easier to read texts with a big amount of unknown vocabulary. I have a Mac by the way.

Has anybody heard of such a program?

[stephanhodges]

That's probably a hard item to search for here, although it's been mentioned several times. DimSum, ZDT, and Wakan should all do that for WEB pages. ZDT and Wakan will convert to Pinyin. I'm not possitive, but I think DimSum is the only one that will put them side by site, or one on top of other. (Dimsum is from http://www.mandarintools.com). They should all three be in the Links section.

Clavis Sinica should also do something similar, as well as Wenlin.

[geraldc]

This thread discussed how to do it in windows using Microsoft Word, and as Word is available for the Mac, the Mac version should have the same functionality.

[danqi]

That is exactly what I am looking for. But unfortunately, it seems like that IME package is only available for Windows.

That website tool doesn't really do what I am looking for, but thanks anyway.

[malinuo]

Good question, but I don't know if it's available. You could ask at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chinese-mac/ and check the FAQ at http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/ .

The Phonetic Guide feature in MS Word for Mac doesn't work exactly the same way in MS Word for Windows. With the Japanese version of MS Word for Mac, you automatically get hiragana in the Phonetic Guides, but in the English version you do not. I don't know of any version of MS Word for Mac where you get pinyin. As pointed out above http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2171-instant-chinese-character-to-pinyin-conversion-in-ms-word explains more.

[trevelyan]

Try the pintone annotation method in Adsotrans. It should do what you need:

http://www.adsotrans.com

If anything doesn't work the way you expect, drop a note.

[danqi]

It almost works, yet there is always some gibberish in there, no matter which encoding settings I use. Still worse is, that I can't seem to print it, since it doesn't have line breaks. When I try to print it straight from the browser the text is cut of on the right. And copying it to a word processor doesn't work.

[trevelyan]

Danqi,

If you have difficulties and can send me a copy of what you're annotating along with what annotation setting you're using I'll try to find the problem. If you're copying and pasting simplified Chinese text from a site with GB2312, one suggestion is to try setting the output to GB2312 and keeping the input as simplified UTF8.

I'll try to think up some solutions to the other problems that you've had. Thanks for the feedback.

[danqi]

I was trying to annotate this article using the Pintone setting:

http://kanzhongguo.com/news/gb/articles/4/2/27/61260.html

Quality: Best

Encoding: Any setting produces some gibberish

The gibberish is very few and not that bad. It is mostly in between sentences. The real problem really is the formating which makes it impossible to print the page.

Thanks for the help.

[trevelyan]

Thanks -- will look into it.

[dporter1465]

The NJStar program has a very useful pinyin annotation feature. You can display the pinyin by itself or above or below individual characters. Very useful in preparing class presentations!

[marcel]

Before my hard disk crashed ,in MSWord2000 I was able to place pinyin above characters by accessing the "Asian Layout" menu. After replacing the disk and re-installing Word2000 and Global IME, Asian Layout doesn't show up, and tweaking the regional settings for Chinese (PRC) doesn't work. Can anyone help, or throw some light? I'm using MSWinXP. Can't afford the space, money, or future bugs of Vista!

Thanks

[malinuo]

After replacing the disk and re-installing Word2000 and Global IME, Asian Layout doesn't show up,

You should probably have started a new thread, as you have a different problem. But did you activate Asian Layout in the preferences of MS Word?

[marcel]

I found the answer (for my setup: Word2000 and WinXP)

In Word，I went to Tools-〉Customize〉Format。 Scrolling down format, for other reasons，I accidentally found icons for “Keyboard Language ”， “Phonetic Guide”，“Enclose Characters“and “Combine Characters”。Dragged them to the toolbar。

They don't appear in the drop-down mwnus，but clicking the icons works fine。

[ICboard]

On 12/12/2005 at 12:13 AM, danqi said:

I am looking for a tool that adds Pinyin above or below the characters in a text

Hi! My team is working on an input method specially for foreign Chinese learners.

 

The main features are:

 

tone and common translation display;

long press shows more(mini dictionary);

input En and output Ch;

……

 

Learn More

 

I think that maybe what you are looking for. Just take a look if you are interested in.