hanxue Posted June 6, 2009 at 10:08 AM Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 at 10:08 AM When I open certain documents in Word for Mac, it won't display characters. Instead, there will be white squares. It's not until I select them and then choose a Chinese font that it will finally display them properly. I find this annoying, so I was wondering if there is a way to set the Word to always display Chinese characters in certain font upon opening a .doc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdn Posted June 7, 2009 at 01:16 AM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 01:16 AM Yeah, I get this sometimes. The weird thing is that when I open the doc with 'Text Edit', or do a Quick View (select the file and press spacebar), everything displays correctly. It's not a solution as such, but after you open the doc, go into the 'Compatibility' box (in preferences), and click 'Font Substitution'. This lists the fonts that haven't been correctly displayed, and lets you choose which font you want to use for the substitution, and then does the conversion for you. This method is helpful when you have a long, mixed English/Chinese doc and don't want to go through highlighting the relevant lines by hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 7, 2009 at 07:09 AM Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 07:09 AM Thanks man, it worked. Macs can be a real pain in the neck sometimes. So there's no way to set the preferences to display Chinese characters in a certain font on each launch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted June 7, 2009 at 04:24 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 04:24 PM It's not a Mac problem as much as a Microsoft problem. I haven't had this issue on NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice on Macs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russmeier Posted June 7, 2009 at 10:04 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 10:04 PM (edited) I have had no issues with any software on my Mac. All software displays Chinese characters correctly. I'm using Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) and all software updates have been done to the current version 10.5.7. I also use Microsoft Office extensively. I've never had any problems with Word, Powerpoint, Entourage, or Excel displaying Chinese characters. I'm using Office 2008 for Mac. The only problems I've ever had are actually on my iPhone. When I read some emails written in Chinese, the hanzi are occasionally wrong. But, not the square-box problem you described! That being said, maybe it is a preferences or font issue in your settings. Here is a summary of mine -- it might be useful for you or others using Mac. System Preferences -------------------------- In International Panel Input Menu options I have U.S. and Simplied Chinese input methods checked. The Character Palette is also checked. Fonts -------------------------- Font book shows a large number of Chinese related fonts installed. I may have had to select "Install East Asian language fonts" from the Mac OS intall CD -- I'm not sure because it's been a long long time since I installed the OS on this computer. Similarly, Office might install fonts also and you may have to select those fonts during install. Here is the ordered list of Chinese related fonts I see in font book when I select All Fonts: BiauKai, GB18030 bitmap, Hei, Kai, LiHei Pro, LiSong Pro, PMingLiU, SimSun, STFangson, STHeiti, STKaiti, STSong, Apple LiGothic, Apple LiSung, There is also a complete collection of Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Cyrillic fonts installed as well. Microsoft Word Preferences: --------------------------------------- In my Office Preferences, I don't really see anything that suggests a special setup for displaying East Asian languages. There is one preference you want to make sure is UNCHECKED. In the Preferences : Show All : Authoring and Proofing Tools selections, uncheck "Draft Fonts" Finally, here is the URL for a website that I consulted a lot when I was first starting to enter Chinese on my Macintosh. I am in no way affiliated with this group -- I just think the website is an excellent reference for Mac users. http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/osx5.html Good luck! Russ Milwaukee, WI Edited June 7, 2009 at 10:51 PM by russmeier Added preferences info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 20, 2009 at 04:47 PM Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 at 04:47 PM Thanks for your input man. I checked my Mac and I as well have all the fonts you've listed. Also, in Word - Preferences, I previously had the "Draft font" unchecked, too. Also, thanks for the Chinese Mac site!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 20, 2009 at 04:54 PM Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 at 04:54 PM (edited) Damn, they want $25 for the LiveDictionary for Safari... I wish it was like the Pop-up dictionary they offer in Firefox for FREE..... Are there any equivalents to it for Safari? Edited June 20, 2009 at 05:24 PM by jon09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted June 20, 2009 at 10:04 PM Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 at 10:04 PM Why Safari? Why not just use Firefox? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 20, 2009 at 10:12 PM Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 at 10:12 PM ^^ Because I got sick of its slowness/bulkiness... Safari seems much lighter, and faster too.... (on a Mac, obviously...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 21, 2009 at 01:55 AM Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 01:55 AM Because despite it's customisability Firefox currently sucks. I've used it for years but finally gave up on it just recently. On my Mac it would regularly take up 300-400 meg of RAM when running compared to the same pages in Opera (which I run now) sitting at a far more respectable 100-150 Meg. In my experience the recent versions of Firefox (from 3 onwards) have also been incredibly buggy and I would get numerous crashes or hangs requiring a forced quit by the operating system per day. That's not the kind of software I want to run and I don't make use of many extensions anyway so stability and resource usage were more important concerns that customisation. When they fix rampant memory issues and random crash bugs I might try it again, but until then it's Opera all the way (Safari loses because it doesn't have the / quick search key). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted June 21, 2009 at 02:16 AM Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 02:16 AM Hmm...I've never had any major problems with Firefox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 21, 2009 at 06:56 AM Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 06:56 AM imron: what quick search button are you talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 21, 2009 at 07:52 AM Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 07:52 AM I'm talking about the / key. In Firefox (and Opera, which had it first) the / key allows you to perform a quick search of content on a page without needing to press command-F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted June 21, 2009 at 07:53 AM Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 07:53 AM Oh, well Safari is even more convenient as far as Search is concerned - whenever you're viewing certain page in your browser you simply type something and it will automatically start the search.... try it, it's a nice feature of the new Safari 4. If Search thing was really the only thing Opera won you over Safari for, then this should win you back to Safari I guess. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 21, 2009 at 09:36 AM Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 at 09:36 AM I haven't upgraded to Safari 4 yet and don't intend to for a while. The quick search wasn't the only thing that won me over. I was an Opera user before switching to Firefox back when Opera didn't work with Gmail, and Firefox at the time had copied most of the good features of Opera (such as the / key ). Also, it's unlikely that that search feature would win me back alone - but it's a deal-breaker if a browser doesn't include it. I also don't like how Safari highlights and enlarges words that are being searched for (I'm not sure if they still do this in 4), and there doesn't seem to be a nice quick way to turn proxies on/off, plus there's the lack of keywords for bookmarks etc etc. Lots of little things that as a power keyboard user put me off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russmeier Posted August 29, 2009 at 05:56 PM Report Share Posted August 29, 2009 at 05:56 PM Hello Macintosh users: (I chose to post into this thread we had going earlier because people searching for "MAC" easily find this thread). I finished the update to Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and the improvements to Chinese support are amazing. ITABC disappeared from my language toolbar and was replaced with a new Apple designed PINYIN - SIMPLIFIED input method. And let me just say that it works much better on longer phrases, sentences; if I don't interrupt a phrase it does really really well. I'm impressed so far, although I admit my time with the new input method is still limited as I haven't typed any large documents. Also, Apple brought their iPhone technology into the OS for users that have multi-touch touchpads (MacBook Pros for example) --- using the touchpad, you can input characters by drawing them. Russ Milwaukee, WI （密尔沃基） Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted August 30, 2009 at 12:47 AM Report Share Posted August 30, 2009 at 12:47 AM I've been debating whether or not to upgrade. How does the new IME compare to QIM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russmeier Posted August 30, 2009 at 01:47 AM Report Share Posted August 30, 2009 at 01:47 AM Hi, I'm afraid I can't answer that because I've never used QIM. I've always just used the free input methods that are built-into Mac OS. Hopefully one of the other Mac users can do a comparison for you. Russ Milwaukee, WI (密尔沃基） Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted August 30, 2009 at 05:03 AM Report Share Posted August 30, 2009 at 05:03 AM It has a free, 10,000 character trial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanxue Posted November 12, 2009 at 05:30 PM Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 at 05:30 PM Hey russmeier, I've upgraded to Snow Leopard now too, but there is one thing that irritates me about the Simplified Pinyin input - now it uses the same icon as Traditional Pinyin input. On Leopard, Simplified Pinyin icon had the flag of China icon if I remember right, yet now they made it completely identical to Traditional input icon of "拼“ on the dark background, makes it really inconvenient to differentiate what input method you're currently on. Does it also display it for you in such way? Is there a chance to change that Menubar icon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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