Reply To: How to type Chinese character in Xmetal author 5.5

[Derek Read]

The best way to enter Chinese into XMetaL Author (and possibly any application in Windows) is to install a [url=http://www.google.com/search?q=Chinese+IME]Chinese IME [/url]and use that. How you use it will depend on the IME and the particular input method you choose to use.

Most IMEs offer at least a few different input methods of which between 3 are very common. Professional Chinese typists may prefer “cangjie” for example (difficult to learn but once you know it typing can be very fast), whereas other people might prefer “pinyin” (China) vs “zhuyin” (Taiwan) which are slower but easier to learn, or one of the other hundreds that are available.

If you are running a Chinese version of Windows the default Chinese IME should already be enabled (and supports the above input methods). For other language editions of Windows it is probably not installed (English for sure) and in that case you will need to install it. XP includes it on the XP installation CD but check with Microsoft. They document how to install and use these for each different version of Windows (XP, Vista, and all the various different versions of Window 7).

There are also various 3rd parties that make IMEs but for most people the one that Microsoft offers is usually good enough (especially since it is also free).

Reply