typing chinese characters

[xuechengfeng]

sorry for the ignorance, but i'm new to this. i really don't understand using the computer and chinese.. i see a bunch of 1/2's and straight bars and stuff like that..

i'm really lost.. anybody feel like a quick tutorial or point me in the right direction?

xiexie

[ax]

before you pose a question about computing...you need to supply more information...what OS you're on? what have you installed? and describe what your problem is?

ax

[Alleluia]

Do you mean that when you visit some Chinese websites you can't see the characters, just a lot of stuff like this: ½¨Ê¡Ê®´óÅ©ÃñÅ®×´ÔªÁõ÷»ÝÏòÄþÏÄ×

Cos' if you do, I have the same problem. I don't know ANYTHING about computers and so I don't have a clue as to why, but on my computer some Chinese sites look ok and some just open up looking like that. I think there are two different systems of putting the characters in or something (Big5 and GB, if I'm not all wrong), and for some reason my computer doesn't "understand" one of them. So this might be the problem, but I still don't know how to fix it.

Maybe someone smarter will tell us! Please!

[Quest]

Assuming you use XP and IE, right click on a page, then look for Encoding, try out Auto-Select. If that doesn't work, try out each Chinese encoding listed there, then try Unicode. If it asks you to download a Chinese font, do so. If nothing works, you might just need to download the language packs.

tell me what OS and what browser you are using, and I will point you to the download link.

[Alleluia]

Hey, thanks!

It worked. I never even dreamed it would be so simple... Yes, I have XP and IE. I just had to add Big5 into the list, and then I left it on Autoselect, and now it seems to work.

Yay indeed!

[xuechengfeng]

i'm runing windows xp

i figured out how to change the blocks i see into the characters, but what i'm not sure of is how you guys are typing them up.

[林彪]

You need to get either the "NJ Star Communicator" or the Microsoft Chinese IME. The NJStar Communicator is probably easier to install, and you can get it here:

http://www.njstar.com/communicator/download.php

[eric]

yea lots of web sites are stupid and they don't have the encoding or charset specified : if it's from taiwan, use big5; if it's from china, use gb2312.

nobody uses unicode/utf-8 right now..

[xuechengfeng]

well thanks for the program 林彪 but i can't figure out how to use the word processer, don't mind me i'm an idiot and should read a tutorial

[xuechengfeng]

nevermind.. i figured it out

谢谢你们。