CEDICT formatted for Kingsoft Powerword 2007

[ABCinChina]

After taking a look at the most recent version of the CC-CEDICT database, I decided to format it for use with Kingsoft Powerword 2007. The simplified Chinese version of Powerword 2007 can be downloaded here (简体版), and the traditional Chinese version can be downloaded here (繁體版). If anyone tries it out and wants to buy an activation code for practically free, then send me a message. I've changed the tone numbers used in CEDICT entirely to tone marks. Yet, these tone marks will not show up in Windows 2000 running Powerword 2007 for some reason, so I'm guessing that only Windows XP and above can show the tone marks. With this list you'll be able to read Simplified and Traditional Chinese with the greatest of ease!

So I've converted the entire CEDICT database into two rar files since the maximum I can upload here is under 1 MB. Please follow the directions below to import into Powerword:

1. Go into your Control Panel and select "Regional and Language Options". Then click the "Advanced" tab and set the "Language for non-Unicode programs" to Chinese (PRC). You'll have to restart your computer if asked.

2. After downloading both files (UserDict.part01.rar & UserDict.part02.rar) to one location, click on one of the 2 files and WinRAR will automatically unzip them into one text file called "UserDict.txt".

3. Open the file with Notepad and make sure all the Chinese characters are shown properly without any question marks.

4. Import the "UserDict.txt" file into Powerword through the User dictionary and be sure to press the "Save" button before exiting. (This process takes about 1 hour)

UserDict.part01.rar

UserDict.part02.rar

Edited November 8, 2008 at 05:54 AM by ABCinChina
Added Words & Fixed Entries (更新日: Oct. 6, 2008)

[ABCinChina]

After done importing, I recommend the below changes in the Powerword settings:

1. Go into "Configuration", then "Cursor-Dictionaries", and disable the default Kingsoft "Concise Chinese-English" dictionary. (The CEDICT definitions are better and you may want to reduce the clutter in your pop-up window)

2. Then make sure you make the "User defined Dictionary" in the "Cursor-Dictionaries" section on top so that the CEDICT definition pop-ups appear before any other dictionary. (Remember that you can always add/remove dictionaries here by clicking the "Add" button)

3. Go into "settings" under the "screen word-capture" heading and un-check the "Auto time-delay" and change it to 100 MSEL.

4. Go into "basic settings" and click "Large font" for the font size. This will make the Chinese characters bigger and easier to see. The English fonts remain the same size.

5. This one is purely preference, but you can go into "advanced settings" and un-click "Show phonetic symbol" (for English) and "Show dictionary name" (for pop-up translator) to reduce the clutter of the pop-up translations.

6. Finally, if you notice a slower dictionary look-up speed, then go into the "Lookup-Dictionaries" settings and un-check the "User defined Dictionary" to improve the speed. (You'll still get the CEDICT definitions by hovering your pointer over the word)

If for any reason you want to delete the User dictionary, just exit Powerword and find the "C:Documents and Settings(your log-on name)Application DataKingsoftPowerWordUserDict" folder and erase it.

Edited October 27, 2008 at 08:18 AM by ABCinChina
Updated Recommendations (Oct. 21, 2008)

[Shadowdh]

Can you import this to 2008 or is that a no? Thanks for all the work...

[ABCinChina]

Kingsoft had decided to scrap Powerword 2008 and instead came out with a free version called Google-Kingsoft Powerword. Unfortunately, the new version has a very small dictionary as the program is only 23MB. Powerword 2007 has over 10 dictionaries and takes 250MB of your hard drive space with only the recommended dictionaries installed.

But the answer to your question is that Google-Kingsoft Powerword doesn't have the User dictionary function as the paid versions of 2007 and before. I paid around 100RMB for 2007, but you can always download the trial version of 2007; it let's you use all the full functions for a certain amount of time. If you decide you like it, you can always shoot me a message and I can point you where to buy the activation code practically free.

[Shadowdh]

Thanks ABC will download now... much appreciated

[ABCinChina]

No problem, people here probably think I'm like a broken record always advocating how helpful Powerword 2007 is in reading Chinese, especially with the added CEDICT dictionary. Hope you find the program useful.

[weregoingunion]

how do I convert from UTF-8 to ANSI?

[roddy]

Should be quite simple - one you've got it open in notepad, 'save as' and there will be encoding options.

[ABCinChina]

I only set the encoding at UTF-8 because it is the most compatible while ANSI will not show up correctly in Chinese (Taiwan) unicode computers. It serves as a double check to make sure people already have this encoding set before they import so I don't get asked..."Why do some characters turn into questions marks?"

[Shadowdh]

Ok I have finally got powerword 2007 installed and have clicked on the part 1 rar to decompress (or whatever its called) both parts into the one file I get a file called userdict.TXT then saved as to make it ansi... I imported it to powerword (took forever, hours rather than minutes) and its not there... at least not where I can find it... it seems that most of my settings are reset each time I close and open power word too... eg I set it to english and it resets to Chinese every time I close then reopen... will play around with it some more to find out what I can do... thanks again ABC for all your work... cheers

[ABCinChina]

It does take an amazingly long time to import depending on the computer. Powerword formats the data again in its own way. Make your you press the "save" button right after importing the big list. (You don't want to re-do this step) Then press "Exit" and make sure you close Powerword by right-clicking the icon in the lower-right and completely exit the program. Powerword seems to save and apply any new setting changes if you exit, then restart the program. Hence, if you just shut down windows without exiting Powerword, you might lose all your setting changes if you didn't exit out of Powerword beforehand.

Edit: If anyone is having problems importing this big text file, then send me a message and I'll send you the already-formatted Powerword Userdict file through email. Then you don't have to spend 1 hour importing the huge text file. (Just make sure your email can receive a file just under 4MB)

Edited October 6, 2008 at 08:59 AM by ABCinChina

[Shadowdh]

Thanks to ABCinChina I got this working... works brilliantly. Now to get it working in Firefox...

[ABCinChina]

Hey Shadow, glad to hear you finally got it working after all this time! One thing I've heard is that many pop-up translators do not work in Firefox 3 and this is a problem with Firefox and not with the translator software. For this reason, I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.17

Edited October 4, 2008 at 03:00 PM by ABCinChina
added link

[Shadowdh]

Ah that would be the problem then, I have ff3.03... sigh... hopefully soon it will come right... thanks again mate... without your help I could not have done it... cheers.

[weregoingunion]

Thanks for taking the time make this. I got it working and it's great.

In case anyone is having the same problem... I asked how to convert the text file because Notepad wouldn't open the file (kept saying file was too large) and I didn't see any text conversion options in Microsoft Word/Wordpad. The next time I opened the file with Notepad (maybe after a reboot) it worked and I was able to convert it.

Anyway, thanks again.

[ABCinChina]

No problem! Though it's not a big deal, I've updated the dictionary with more words, made corrections to some entries, and fixed some more formatting errors. Just simple things such as putting the most common definition first. (If you already imported the last file, I wouldn't bother updating)

[linsook]

thanks for the heads-up ABC, i really appreciate it. i've actaullly switched to lingoes on my laptop as it is running on vista and powerword 07 is painfully slow on it, however powerword is still on my desktop and will definately look into this.

thanks for all the effort. cheers!

[ABCinChina]

There's this patch for Powerword 2007 running on Vista that will fix the problem. All you have to do is unzip and then put the file into your Kingsoft directory and replace. How does Powerword compare to Lingoes?

Windows Vista Patch.rar

[linsook]

wow thanks. i actually like lingoes better. with the dynamics of you being able to pick and choose dictionaries from the huge list online which include normal dictionary packs to online-linked dictionaries.

overall it seems faster and lighter and works with firefox. the only thing which i missed initially from powerword was the text to speech but my chinese has improved such that i dont need it anymore.

beside being free, i think lingoes' huge list of dictionaries and being modular makes it a very good alternative if not a good replacement. they just need to open their dict pack format so we could port your cc-cedict over as there cedcit dictionary is seriously lacking.

if i were pushed to choose one to use over the other. i would have to go with lingoes.

[ABCinChina]

Actually, I wanted to try out Lingoes with this CEDICT dictionary I made so I sent the file to the author of Lingoes in hopes that he would update it. Unfortunately, he is too busy...

Edit: He never replied...