Advanced Pinyin conversion toolbox for Google Spreadsheets available

[CleverClogs]

Please feel free to check out and comment on the new Pinyin conversion toolbox for Google Spreadsheets created by Bruce McPherson. The link takes you to the full write-up the developer just published. My own role in the toolkit's development was that I invited Bruce to put these scripts together and that I provided feedback along the way. My specific use case is that Google Spreadsheets serves as a cloud-based solution to store and retrieve the vocabulary lists I prepare for use with flashcards app Flashcards Deluxe (iOS and Android).

The primary goal of the toolbox was to make it easier to convert vocabulary lists that already contain one type of pinyin to the other on an ongoing basis. The toolbox removes the need to continually cut and paste between web-based converters and Google Spreadsheets. Another advantage is consistency: because the conversion scripts behave as regular Google Spreadsheets formulas, any change you make to the source column will immediately be reflected in the target column.

The Pinyin conversion toolbox is a set of Google Apps scripts that you first need to add to an existing Google Spreadsheet project. After that, a number of familiar conversion formulas become available, and one less obvious one:

The most obvious conversion features are those from tone numbers to tone marks and vice versa =pinyinToToneMarks() and =pinyinToToneNumbers().

The less obvious feature is pretty nifty: it is intended for people who like to memorize tones using pinyin tone colorization. A typical scheme would be to display a pinyin syllable with a first tone in red, a pinyin syllable with second tone in orange, and so on.

The scripts offer various kinds of customization depending on the type of conversion you want to run.

Bruce's blog post contains a link to a spreadsheet that already has the conversion functions implemented. I hope you will want to check it out and join the conversation.

Marjolein Hoekstra (@CleverClogs)

[sparrow]

Very handy. Thank you!