Inputting Chinese using Unicode

[mandel1luke]

I have the Traditional Chinese IME installed and would like to input using Unicode. How do I do that? Thanks.

[imron]

What OS and IME are you using?

Also, are you looking specifically to output unicode to a given program, or are you just looking to save a document in unicode?

The reason I ask is that it's quite probable that the IME is already outputting unicode and what you need to do is make sure the program you are using can save what you type as unicode rather than some other format.

[mandel1luke]

Windows XP on IME 3.0.

Inputting Chinese characters on a word document or Unicode txt file and intending to save it.

Thanks a lot.

[imron]

What you should do is type (or copy/paste) the text you want into Notepad, and then when you are saving the file there is an option (somewhere under the filename text entry) to save it as either ANSI text (which will be BIG-5 for traditional characters), utf-16 little-endian/big-endian, or utf-8. The default for a new file will be ANSI.

I believe MS Word documents already store the text as unicode, however it's wrapped around their own proprietarty file format, so it's of little/no use if you want to read the files with a program other than Word.

[mandel1luke]

No, what I mean is I want to input a rather obscure character which is not in the GB, but in Unicode. I have the Unicode no for it, but don't know how to input it.

For example, the character says UniCode:CJK 统一汉字扩充-A U+4B4B, how do I input it so that it appears?

[gato]

I don't think MS IME 3.0 support Unicode input directly.

There are a few ways to do it:

1. Install MS Chinese IME 2003. It support input of characters by Unicode or GB code.

http://down.zdnet.com.cn/old/windows/swinfo/0,2008005031,39086800s,00.htm?

微软拼音输入法2003

2. How to enter Unicode characters in Microsoft Windows

http://www.fileformat.info/tip/microsoft/enter_unicode.htm

3. The Quick Unicode Input tool

http://www.cardbox.com/quick.htm

[imron]

In Word, you can just type the character's unicode value and then alt-x e.g. in this case you would type 4b4b followed by alt-x and word will display the correct character 䭋. If you're not using a font that supports this character it will just display a square box, however the character will be correct so if you copy/paste the square box into another application then you should get the character without any problems.

Another way if you aren't using Word and just want to type one character every now and then is to use the Unihan database. Just go to this page and enter the code of the character you require (minus the U+), then copy/paste the character that is shown on that page in the "Your Browser" box.

[zmanc1987]

Mandel I would like to know why you would want to use Unicode. I found that for typing Chinese google pinyin works the best for typing Chinese. (http://tools.google.com/pinyin/) There has not been a Chinese character that I could not find yet. Once you have it you can just use the pinyin to type your characters, soooo much quicker then alt-x....... Also if you have some software like QQ that is displaying Chinese like ???? or ascii symbols, you can go into the advanced tab of your regional and language settings and set non Unicode languages to Chinese, this will make anything that comes up in symbols come up as Chinese characters instead.

That took me a few tries to figure out hehe. Hope I made your life a little easier.

[skylee]

I found that for typing Chinese google pinyin works the best for typing Chinese. (http://tools.google.com/pinyin/[/url']) There has not been a Chinese character that I could not find yet.

zmanc1987, I believe this is the character that the OP wants to type, which is an alternative form of 飽/bao3 ( I could be wrong though ) -

I would like to know if you can type it using google pinyin. All I can see is a box in #7.

[mandel1luke]

HI. There're some obscure characters that I want to input on a word document, so I wonder if there's only the option of putting in an image file rather than have it encoded in Unicode as a character font0.

Apparently when I copy and paste, those obscure characters turn out to be image files.

I would like to know which Chinese font has the largest no. of Unicode glyph encoding, so I don't need to keep adding in image files.

The suggestion of using google is a good one, I try it out. Thanks.

[zmanc1987]

保褓堢媬 Those are just a few of the bao that google pinyin shows. There are 64 choices for bao in my google pinyin. Too many to list here. I'm sure one of them is right.

If all you see is boxes you need to make sure you have the language pack installed on your computer, if after that you still cannot see it set the non Unicode languages to Chinese too and then you will be able to see any format of Chinese characters.

Using google pinyin is easier for typing word documents too, because you can use it in any software pretty much. I use it in msn, excel, word, etc. That way you don't have to remember Unicode number and letter combos or take time looking them up. Just learn pinyin

[imron]

@zmanc1987, actually, initially I thought the same as you and that the problem would be solved by updating to a more modern IME, however after checking, none of the IMEs I use under Windows or OSX (google, freewb, QIM and FIT) are able to type this character and that includes IMEs that are shape based, not pronunciation based.

Also, for rare characters, it's probably easier to type the unicode value rather than search through 64 choices to find what you are looking for!

@mandel1luke, you are copying the incorrect part from the webpage. When you lookup the character in the Unihan database, the top of the page contains a table called Glyphs. In that table there are two columns. The first column is called "The Unicode Standard" and contains a graphic image of the character. This is designed for people who don't have the correct font installed. The second column is called "Your Browser", which will display how the web browser you are using renders the Unicode of this character. For the character you listed, this is: 䭋, which displays fine for me (running Firefox under Mac OSX). If you don't have the correct fonts installed, then it's quite possible that this will just appear as an empty box, or maybe a question mark. You can however copy/paste this empty box into a document, and people who have the correct fonts installed will be able to see it.