GMAN: Windows XP Japanese Input

Windows XP Japanese Input

April 29th, 2004

Here is how to setup Japanese in Windows XP including handwritten kanji recognition.

Note that these instructions are for Windows XP Pro. I don't have XP Home. I assume it's the same but I could be wrong.

Installing Japanese Support

First go to the control panel and Pick "Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options"

Then pick "Regional and Language Options"

You should get the "Regional and Language Options" window like below. At the top click the "Languages" tab.

The first thing you need to do is click "Install files for East Asian Languages". Once you do that click "Apply".

Next click the "Advanced" tab and where it says "Code page conversion tables" you need to check "Japanese" and click "Apply". Until you do this Japanese will not be an option in certain places. I don't remember if you have to reboot at this point or not.

Anyway, the next step is to set Japanese for "Language for non-Unicode programs". This particular option will make it possible to run Japanese software as well as type Japanese almost anywhere including filenames, notepad, etc. Of course some programs don't support Japanese.

There are two problems with this setting though. One is aesthetic, the default system font becomes a font that supports Japanese and in non unicode Japanese the character / becomes ¥. That can be confusing since all paths almost anywhere in Windows will now have that symbol instead of \. For example C:\windows\system32 becomes c:¥windows¥system32.

The second issue is that some programs look at this setting to decide what language to install in. Two that come to mind are Apple's Quicktime and Nero CD. In order to install them in English you need to set this setting back to English, reboot, install, set it back to Japanese, reboot.

After you are finished rebooting get back to the "Regional and Language Options" control panel, go back to the "Languages" tab and click "Details..." under "Text services and input languages".

That will bring up this window. Click "Add..."

Set the input language to Japanese. For the keyboard layout I'm honestly not 100% sure since I have a Japanese keyboard so I can't check with an American one. For now set it to Japanese. FYI: A Japanese keyboard has 5-8 more keys than a US keyboard.

Click "OK" and now pick "Key Settings..."

Select "Switch between input languages" and pick "Change Key Sequence..."

Turn OFF both "Switch input languages" and "Switch keyboard layouts". Normally pressing like Alt-Shift or something like that will switch between Japanese and English input. For me, I almost never want to switch (you can type English in Japanese input mode). Worse though it seems like I press those keys by accident quite often and it switches while I'm typing messing everything up so I suggest you turn this feature off.

Click "Okay", "Okay", "Okay" until you are out of the control panels. You're done with the control panels.

Using the Japanese Input Method Editor (IME)

Now, most likely, somewhere on your screen you'll see a small window like this

That is called the "Language Bar" and it's where you can choose Japanese or English input modes. Click on "English" and you should be able to pick "Japanese"

The bar will change to this

I generally find that bar to be in the way so you can tell it to go into the taskbar. Right click it and pick "Minimize"

It should pop into the taskbar like this.

Although you shouldn't need to you can switch between Japanese and English input modes by clicking the JP/EN button.

You can also pick "Show the Language bar" to get the big version back. Do that now.

Entering Japanese

Note that the language settings are PER PROGRAM!! That means if we were in English, ran two programs, in one program we went to the language bar and picked Japanese when we switched back to the other program it would still be in English input mode. This can be confusing. Another thing, unless some program is active that accepts text input some of the settings will not be available. So, open Notepad and keep it active while trying the follow stuff below.

Okay, the most basic thing you need to know. The 4th button in the language bar switches between several different sub input modes

They are in order from top to bottom, Hiragana, Full Width Katakana, Full Width English, Half Width Katakana, Half Width English, Direct Input. The only 2 you really care about are Hiragana and Direct Input. Direct Input is English. You type, you get English just like Windows was before you did all this stuff. Set it to Hiragana and you can type romanji like "toru" and you'll see とる instead. The underline means the Input Method Editor (IME), the thing that does this is waiting for you to decide what you want to do with those characters. If you press ENTER they will be entered as is, If you press space once the IME will turn them into the most common thing they could be OR the last thing you told it to change them too. Press space again and you'll get a list of things it could be. For example on the second press I got this

The left window is a list of all the things the IME thinks it could change とる into. Use the cursor keys to select one. Generally the last thing on the list is katakana, in this case トル, that's why you never need to use the special Katakana input modes since you can just press space twice to get there. Also the list wraps so if you are at the top, press the up key and you'll go to the bottom. Plus, if you type something that would normally be katakana like てれび on the first space press it will become the most common thing which is テレビ.

On the right window are all the various homonym definitions for toru with examples. The first one for example is 取る as in to take a note, take a fee. The 3rd one is 撮る as in take a picture. Very useful, even many Japanese often forget which one is correct, especially the less common ones.

Once you have what you want press ENTER to complete it.

TIP: switching between Hiragana input mode and Direct Input mode through the language bar is tedious. Instead you can switch by pressing Alt-Tilde (the key below ESC on your keyboard). So, need to type Japanese, press Alt-Tilde, start typing. When you are done press Alt-Tilde again to switch back to English.

A more complex example.

Let's say you want to enter 今締める so you type いましめる. When you press space you'll get this 戒める. Pressing space again will not give you the completion you want. That's because the IME is trying to make a word out of all 5 characters. To tell it to use less hold shift and press the left arrow. Each time you do less of characters will be highlighted. Press it 3 times until you get this いましめる then press space again. This time the IME will only look up the first two characters. Most likely this time it will become this 今しめる. Notice the gap between 今 and しめる. This means the IME is considering those two words separately. Also the underline under 今 is thicker than the one under しめる indicating that 今 is the current thing the IME is concentrating on. To complete the second word press the right arrow. The underline under しめる will get thicker and you can press space to complete it and choose 締める.

English shortcut:

Sometimes you want to enter one English word in the middle of a Japanese sentence. Instead of switching to Direct Input mode you can just type and ignore what you see on the screen. For example type "handwritten" and you'll get "はんｄｗりってｎ" but then press F8 to convert it to half-width English and you'll get "handwritten". Keep pressing F8 and it will cycle through all uppercase, all lowercase, etc. Press F9 and you'll get full width English. Note that you can't press space since that would start completion so this is only useful for entering single words at a time.

Explanation:

In *normal* Japanese each character takes the same space. They are fixed size fonts. Check out any Japanese writing textbook and you'll see each character is supposed to fit into a box. For graphic design sometimes Japanese use proportional fonts but generally, much more than in English, lots of stuff is in a fixed size font.

Full Width means a character that fills one of those boxes. Half Width means a character that only fits half the box. Technically in the computer half width means it takes a single byte, full width means it takes more than one byte.

Full Width English ＡＢＣ．．． not ASCII ABC, they are multi byte Japanese characters.

Half Width English ABC... Normal ASCII English

Full Width Katakana カタカナ double byte katakana characters

Half Width Katakana ｶﾀｶﾅ single byte katakana characters.

The place this mostly comes up is on internet forms. Lots of forms will ask for your name in full width character then again in katakana in half-width. They'll ask for address in full width but postal code and phone number in half width.

Note: When typing in Hiragana mode pressing the space when there is nothing else typed will insert a full width space. That's usually what you want when typing Japanese but if you need a normal English space you can insert a half-width space while in Hiragana mode by pressing Shift-Space.

Handwritten kanji input

From the language bar click the 6th button (IME パッド). Up pops a list of other ways to enter stuff. The top one is handwriting.

Once you pick it you'll get this window

You can use your mouse or a pen if you have one to enter kanji. I've highlighted the most important buttons. The 2 on the right: "Undo stroke" backs up one stroke. "Erase" clears the writing area.

The ones on the left are just shortcuts for the options that were on the menu that brought you here. The most interesting are probably "by stroke count" which lets you lookup kanji by number of strokes and "by part" which lets you look them up by a particular part. They should be pretty obvious. In all of them the area on the right shows possible kanji. Click one to enter it in the IME. Press enter to add it to your document.

Again, it's important to remember these modes are PER PROGRAM. If you are in one program and select handwritten mode if you switch to a different program you will no longer be in handwritten mode.

Making Japanese your default

Hopefully from reading the above stuff and getting used to switching between Direct Input and Hiragana Input modes you'll realize you pretty much don't need English mode ever. If you navigate back into the "Regional and Language Options" -> "Languages" tab -> "Details..." you can set the "Default input language" to Japanese.

Now when you start Windows, Japanese will immediately be available.

Thanks

Thanks for the great article!

posted by JoshuaCarmodyApril 29, 2004 at 12:56 [ e ]

tips

IME may change verbs by objective.
for example

びでおをとる > ビデオを撮る
record videotape

えいがをとる > 映画を撮る
film a scene

posted by DainApril 29, 2004 at 17:29 [ e ]

Problem experienced

Thanks for the great Article on the IME, Greg. I have been using this for quite sometime already but still able to learn something new from this article.

One problem I have experienced and perhaps others might have seen it as well. I have recently stopped using Internet Explorer in XP and switch over to Opera Web Browser. Opera uses different screen fonts and in some ways, it looks better that IE. Problem however is that I can cut and paste Japanese characters on the web page to Google and stuff but I cannot use IME with it. To make matters worst, if I use IE or MS word to type a Japanese letter, as soon as I switch over the Opear, IME disappears and so is the entire language bar. Everytime I switch between application to Opera, I have to manually call up the lanugage bar again and then switch back to Japanese mode... Guess there is reason to use IE after all.

Anyone have the same problem?

posted by KenApril 30, 2004 at 4:10 [ e ]

No problem here

Are you using the Windows XP IME or the Internet Explorer IME addon?

The addon is techincally called "Active IME". It is not a OS thing, it is a separate API that some programs can check for and use to support Japanese, Chinese and Korean. It works in IE and most MS Office Products and a few other things. If you are using that it will not work in Opera.

The IME described on the page above is the operating system's IME which is different. It's part of the OS works almost everywhere. Of course some programs don't support Japanese at all and they will have problems but the IME will still attempt to insert Japanese into them.

So, first, make sure you are using the correct IME.

If that's not it you might have to put the OS in Japanese mode. (Also covered above).

posted by greggmanApril 30, 2004 at 4:59 [ e ]

OS problems

Ken - I had that problem when I was using Windows ME, but as Gregg said, with the built-in language support in Windows XP I've had no problems.

posted by JoshuaCarmodyApril 30, 2004 at 8:09 [ e ]

Hi Greg, great article on how to change the language settings in XP pro. I do use the IME, but have left all the menu bars etc. in English. In the IME there is one shortcut that I use quite often: by pressing the F7 key is a hiragana word automatically converted to katakana. So you do not have to scroll down the menu with suggestions.

posted by JApril 30, 2004 at 8:32 [ e ]

thanks

I didn't know about pressing F7. Since I use a Japanese keyboard there are extra keys specifically to switch modes and change to katakana etc so currently I press those

For example this key switches between Direct Input and the other modes.

These keys in order are:

Alt: (the normal alt key)
無変換: Converts to Katakana -> 1/2 Width Katakana then Hiragana
Space: The ittybitty Japanese space bar. That took a while to get used to
変換: Completion (or conversion), does the same thing as space
Mode: Changes the mode.

It's pretty complicated:

Press the mode key once　it switches to Hiragana mode.　Shift-Mode changes to Katakana mode. Alt-Mode switches to a special mode where each key on the keyboard corresponds to a single Japanese hiragana character. I'm sure I don't have it 100% correct.

The biggest issue for a non Japanese using a Japanese keyboard is several keys are moved.

Shift-2 is "         On US it's @
Shift-6 is &         On US it's ^
Shift-7 is '         On US it's &
Shift-8 is (         On US it's *
Shift-9 is )         On US it's (
Shift-0 is NA       On US it's )
the next key is - = On US it's - _
next is ^ ~          On US it's + =
then there's | \     On US there is no key there, it's bksp
After P key is @ ` and [ { US is [ { ] }
After L key is ; + : * ] } US is : ; ' * (jp has extra key)
Before the right shift there is one extra key as well which is \ _

It takes a couple weeks to get used to it. I freaked the first time I got here since I was hard to type but by the time I got a US keyboard, about 4 weeks later, I had already gotten used to it and it was just has hard to switch back so I stuck with the Japanese keyboard.

posted by greggmanMay 1, 2004 at 6:32 [ e ]

very nice

hey this is great info, i searched through microsoft.com and couldn't find documentation this good, thanks

posted by phredMay 7, 2004 at 1:58 [ e ]

thanks

It's fairly frustrating being someone studying another language because for 99.99% of all cases either the user is a Japanese speaking person using only Japanese or an English speaking person using only English so the case of people like us using both languages is not very common.

That means there are few docs for us (English docs for English speaking people struggling to learn Japanese) and there are also lots of issues that the majority would never run into (like the problems with Quicktime and Nero mentioned above)

Also there is much less interest for English speaking people trying to learn Japanese than Japanese people trying to learn English so for Japanese wanting to study English there are 10 to 20 times the resources.

At least we can be glad Microsoft made Windows 2K and XP support all languages. Before that each version of Windows only supported one language.

posted by greggmanMay 7, 2004 at 3:46 [ e ]

outlook 2003

I just got a new laptop with Win XP Home and Office 2003. It's been working pretty well so far, but I'm unable to read plain-text Japanese emails in Outlook 2003 (preview pane or when opened).
I did install the East Asian languages files, checked the extend text services box, and the IME works fine, but when I try to read Japanese plain-text emails, I can read the English ok, but the Japanese is just ASCII garbage. If I click to open the email and change the encoding to JIS, EUC, Shift-JIS, or unicode, I still have ASCII garbage. The same email account/server combination worked just peachy under Outlook 2000, Win2K, as long as I manually changed the encoding.
Any suggestions on how to solve this problem?

posted by RogerMay 23, 2004 at 19:38 [ e ]

Are you...

running in Japanese mode (ie, Language to use for Non-unicode programs?) Is your font for messages set to use a font that supports Japanese?

posted by greggmanMay 24, 2004 at 10:48 [ e ]

Thanks a lot!

Very interesting tutorial, thanks a lot!

posted by wozzieMay 29, 2004 at 15:00 [ e ]

But...

Where's the tutorial on running the other way? ;)
My computer is running the Japanese version of XP and there's no way I can see to force a program to run in English. The "Regional and Language Options" window is just a little different.

Dain: Or maybe it won't change the verb... If you've trained the IME on a particular phrase, the same kanji will appear at the top of the list next time you type in the phrase. Otherwise, you can use the notes that appear (as demonstrated on the Notepad screenshot) to figure out the correct kanji.

I'll have to remember the F7 / F8 commands. I always forget which mode I'm running in when I type, and almost always start typing Japanese into the URL bar when I don't want to. Thanks for the tips!

posted by RickMay 30, 2004 at 7:23 [ e ]

Japanese keyboards

Even though I use one daily, I still think it's a pain to code on a Japanese keyboard. Just having the quotes in the wrong place is really hard to get used to.

Last time I went back to the States there was a "House of the Dead" game with a keyboard interface instead of a gun - except the keyboard was a Japanese one. My friend had the hardest time finding the right punctuation keys!

posted by RickMay 30, 2004 at 8:33 [ e ]

Microsoft Outlook "lost" its advanced capabilities

When I first installed Office XP, its Microsoft Outlook application could offer a lot of Japanese language related services such as suggesting opening expressions and more in order to write a very polite letter.

Meanwhile that functions misteriously "managed" to vanish...

Any of you have any clue? What happned? How can I have back my nice Japanese functions?

Best regards,

Gheorghe

posted by GheorgheJune 18, 2004 at 17:14 [ e ]

J-Functions?

Sorry, I don't know. Can you give a better description of the functions?

I installed Office 2003 at work and it had 1 plus and 1 minus. The minus is that Word seems broken. The IME just doesn't work. It's only on my machine, the other people at work don't get the problem   That problem means it's something else installed on my machine. The plus is that Outlook 2003 has some language translation functions built in. You can select a word, right click and pick "translate" and it will lookup the word for you online. Pretty cool.

posted by greggmanJune 20, 2004 at 21:07 [ e ]

No Ime Pad

This article was really great, I'm really enjoying the new Jap capabilities of my PC (THANKS!!), one major problem on my system though is that when I press the "ime pad" button it gets "darker" but no menu appears, so I don't get to use the cool hand writing system.
Anyone knows what may be causing this problem?

posted by JohnJune 25, 2004 at 16:41 [ e ]

Same problem as above

I just wanted to say that I'm having the same problem with the IME Pad and its handwriting recognition features not working. I've been using Japanese with my system for quite a while now and I've never had any other problems whatsoever with Japanese input or display, but for some reason the IME Pad just doesn't work. I click on the button and it changes color as if it's been clicked, but absolutely nothing happens from there. This is frustrating me to no end, because I can't figure out at all what might be causing the problem. Handwriting recognition would be a neat feature to have for those times when I run into an unfamiliar kanji with a not-so-readily-apparent radical, so I'd kind of like to get this working. Any suggestions anyone might have would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

posted by jtJune 28, 2004 at 22:27 [ e ]

First thing to check

Make sure you are in Notepad (just so we are sure to be doing the same thing)

Make sure notepad is the active program (click in it's window). Now click the IME Pad button. Did it work?

If the active program is a program that doesn't accept text input the IME Pad will not come up so try it with notepad first just to see if it works.

posted by greggmanJune 28, 2004 at 23:34 [ e ]

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I tried this (trying to run IME pad with notepad as the active program) and it doesn't seem to solve the problem. Just for test purposes, I tried it with a few other programs (i.e. MS Word) active, and I get the same result -- i.e. nothing happens. I'm beginning to wonder if something has gotten corrupted along the way with my IME installation. Any other things you could think of short of reinstalling IME altogether? Again, thanks for all of the help.

posted by jtJune 29, 2004 at 1:14 [ e ]

Ken, you should try with the Mozilla/Firebird browser.

The pair has excellent IME support, they're in fact almost the only one non-Microsoft applications that natively supports the "Active IME" component, and you will find they also have most any of the additional functionnalities of Opera without the advertising.

posted by jmdespJune 30, 2004 at 6:30 [ e ]

"Are you running in Japanese mode (ie, Language to use for Non-unicode programs?) Is your font for messages set to use a font that supports Japanese?"

Yes I am in Japanese mode. My font under

tools/options/mail format/fonts
is "when composing and reading plain text" MS UI Gothic

Under international fonts

Default encoding is Japanese. Proportional font is ms p gothic, fixed is ms gothic.

Plain text Japanese emails that display fine in Outlook 2000 under Win2000 look like this

‚UŒŽ‚Q‚U“úŽl‘‚Åƒ‰ƒtƒ`ƒ“ƒOƒp
[ƒeƒB‚ð‚µ‚Ü‚·B
Ú‚µ‚¢‚²‚Æ‚Íwww.happyraft.co
m‚ÅŒ©‚Ä‚‚¾‚³‚¢B‰º‚Í‚»‚Ì’†‚©‚ç‚Æ‚Á‚½
“à—e‚Å‚·B[Ø‚è—§‚Á‚½‘å•àŠë
¬•àŠëŒk’J‚ÉˆÍ‚Ü‚ê‚½“ú–{‚Ì”é‹
«A‹g–ììB‰Ä‚Å‚à–L•x‚È…—Ê‚
ð‚½‚½‚¦Aƒ[ƒ‹ƒhƒNƒ‰ƒX‚ÌBIG
‚ÈŒƒ—¬‚ª‚¢‚‚Â‚à‘±‚B‹g–ìì‚Íƒ‰ƒtƒeƒBƒ“ƒO‚ðŠy‚µ
‚Þ‚Ì‚É“ú–{‚ÅƒCƒ`ƒoƒ“‚ÆŒ¾‚Á‚Ä
‚à‰ßŒ¾‚Å‚Í‚È‚¢‚Å‚µ‚å‚¤B@ƒn
ƒbƒs[ƒ‰ƒtƒg‚ÍŽl‘‚Ì‹g–ìì‚Ì
ƒ‰ƒtƒeƒBƒ“ƒOƒgƒŠƒbƒv‚Í‚¿‚å‚Á
‚Ò‚èƒI[ƒXƒgƒ‰ƒŠƒAƒ“ƒeƒCƒXƒg
BŠâ‚Æ…‚ªÊ‚Ç‚éƒS[ƒWƒƒƒX‚È
Ž©‘R‚ðƒXƒe[ƒW‚ÉAƒƒ“ƒ_ƒtƒ‹
‚È‹g–ììƒAƒhƒxƒ“ƒ`ƒƒ[ƒgƒŠƒb
ƒv‚Ö‚Æ‚²ˆÄ“à‚µ‚Ü‚·B
]

¡‚Ü‚ÅŽ„‚ÌŠO‘l‚Ì—F’B‚Tl‚ª
s‚«‚½‚¢‚ÆŒ¾‚¢‚Ü‚µ‚½B‚P‚Rl
W‚Ü‚Á‚½‚çAŠy‚µ‚¢‚ÆŽv‚¢‚Ü‚·
B
s‚«‚½‚¢lŽ„‚Éƒ[ƒ‹‚ð‘—‚Á‚Ä
‰º‚³‚¢B
Olga

posted by RogerJune 30, 2004 at 21:39 [ e ]

Hello

I have Windows Professinal but can not get the Japanese support to work correct with AOL e-mail. Enter Japanese in nore pad and copy and paste but when received it is symbols and shapes. Enter directly into AOLe-mail and after hitting the enter key everything turns to shapes and symbols. Help

Bob

posted by BobJuly 5, 2004 at 21:55 [ e ]

AOL

Bob:

My understanding is AOL does not support Japanese e-mail period.

Roger:

When you get a Japanese e-mail in Outlook 2000 can you open it in a new window and from the menus pick Format->Encoding->Shift JIS?

I don't know what else to suggest. I've been using Outlook as my main email program since 1995 and it's always worked for me so it would seem like there's got to be a setting somewhere that needs to be set differently.

posted by greggmanJuly 5, 2004 at 23:11 [ e ]

IME Pad

Hi

I emailed you but posting my problem on the forum I guess is more appropriate. My IME Pad also doesn't work. I have XP Pro too. Did anyone figure out the solution to this?

posted by KatherineJuly 23, 2004 at 13:20 [ e ]

IME Pad Solution

I have a solution now to the disappearing IME Pad:

If you have XP Pro, click Control Panel, click "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options", Then click Regional Language Options.

Under the Languages tab, UNCLICK "Install East Asian Languages" effectively uninstalling it. Restart your computer.

This time, click the "Install East Asian Languages" option again...re-installing these languages again. The IME Pad should work now!

posted by KatherineJuly 24, 2004 at 18:30 [ e ]

Help - new to Japanese IME - small "ya" "yu" "yo" "tsu"?

I figured out how to type romaji to get hirigana, including strings like pya to get ぴゃ. But how do I get IME to do the small ya after a regular ya, or a small tsu after a regular tsu?

posted by WaltKJuly 26, 2004 at 19:41 [ e ]

ゃ、ゅ、ょ

Well, if you type any 3 letter combo like nya, bya, pya, sha, cha, rya etc you'll get the correct small letter.　にゃ、びゃ、ぴゃ、しゃ、ちゃ、りゃ、 If you type 2 consonants followed by a vowel you'll get the small っ like TTU = っつ and PPU = っぷ. Also common ones like fa or fe become ふぁ and ふぇ.

If you really want to just type small then press X before you type.

XTU = っ

XA = ぁ

posted by greggmanJuly 26, 2004 at 22:39 [ e ]

Japanese Fonts in Corel WordPerfect

I'm running WordPerfect 10. I installed the IME and tested it out in Notepad. Everything works fine. In WordPerfect, however, the Japanese characters show up as empty boxes on the screen.

Has anyone had any luck inputting Japanese into WordPerfect?

Is MS Word a better word processor inputting Japanese?

Maybe this is one of those situations where Corel's product is incompatible with the Microsoft IME product.

posted by SteveJuly 31, 2004 at 2:05 [ e ]

Training IME to recognize special compounds

I work in an office where I have to type a lot of names--the same names, over and over. Some of these don't show up on the list of choices when I hit enter, so I have to enter them one character at a time using different readings. For example, one school's name is 酒生, pronounced さこう. I can only get this name by entering さか, then confirming 酒, and then seperately entering なま　(生). How can I teach IME to put 酒生 on the list when I enter さこう? Another example, ｈow can I teach IME to put 麻生津 on the list when I enter あそうづ?

By the way, great site--I've learned a lot that's already helped me. Thanks for putting it together.

posted by PeterAugust 3, 2004 at 2:46 [ e ]

adding words

make sure the language bar is visible.

click ツール (the last botton on the right)

pick the 4th option (辞書ツール）

in the window that appears pick the 2nd menu (編集) first option (新規登録)

in the dialog that appears:

in (読み）type what you want to type for the word (eg:さこう）

in (語句) type what you want it to change to (eg:酒生)

in (品詞) set it to the type of word (noun 名詞, verb 動詞, person's name 人名, etc)

click (登録）

click (閉じる）

close the window.

posted by greggmanAugust 4, 2004 at 13:39 [ e ]

keyboard not recognised

Thanks Greggman for this site - it'S very useful. I have tried all of you r siggestions but I still have one problem - when I reecently installed English Win XP on my Japanese notebook, the keyboard is recognosed as the standard English one. No matter how much I play arounjd with the regional and language settings as you suggest, I still have teh problem with the " being a @ etc.........

Shoudl I install a Japanese keyboard driver? How dp I do that?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks for yuor support!

Marcus

posted by marcusAugust 15, 2004 at 2:51 [ e ]

How to switch to a Japanese keyboard

Cryptically

Open the Control Panel
Double Click System
Click the "Hardware" Tab
Click "Device Manager"
Select the keyboard, right click and "Update Driver..."
Select "No, not this time"
Click Next
Select "Install from a list or specific location"
Click Next
Select "Don't search. I will choose the dirver to install"
Click Next
UNcheck "show compatible hardware"
from the left list select "(Standard Keyboards)"
from the right list select "Japanese PS/2 Keyboard (106/109 key)"
Click Next

Follow the instructions that follow

posted by greggmanAugust 15, 2004 at 11:31 [ e ]

My Language Bar Text Labels ...

... are in English. Which is fine for the present as I am a beginner. A friend, who is also a Beginner, has installed IME but her Language Bar Text Labels are in Japanese. How can she change them to English?

TIA
Anis

posted by AnisAugust 16, 2004 at 13:51 [ e ]

Great article!

This is a great article + several helpful comments after. I posted a link to this page on my website, which has a japanese-english flashcard program I'm working on. I'm taking japanese classes and vocab is the hardest thing to get down, but digital flashcards really help.

Anyway, I have a question...is there a way to enter a sentence in with the reader, or just single characters? (guessing the latter)

And to the person who said it's hard to code, I totally used to agree...now it's hard to code at the college where the layout's english, I get lost so bad. I'm going to have to switch back for awhile, though, because I'm taking part in a competition in Nov. and I doubt we can bring our own keyboards and change the layout... To think, most of my training will be in typing like an american again. =p

sary

posted by sarysaAugust 16, 2004 at 21:44 [ e ]

Copying Japanese text from pdf to notepad

Hi Gregg,

great site!

However I am having difficulty copying japanese text from a .pdf document into Adobe Photoshop. I have also tried to copy into notepad and to no avail. I have followed your instructions for installing and viewing japanese on windows XP but no joy when copying and pasting.

Any ideas?

posted by MissygAugust 17, 2004 at 8:02 [ e ]

Text Labels

I don't think I had ever seen it in English but I looked and found it! Cool! To make the text labels and dialogs appear in English

Right Click on the Language Bar and pick "Settings..." (it might say 設定)
The "Text Services and Input Languages" dialog should appear. There are probably two IMEs. The "Microsoft IME Standard 2002" and the "Microsoft Natrual Input 2002". Which ever one is bold, select that one and pick "Properties"
On the first tab (全般) in the bottom area of the dialog (その他) the very first option says "メニューおよびダイアログで使用する言語" and it's most likely set to "自動設定". Select that and change it to "English".
Click OK.

Now the label and even that dialog you just saw if you bring it back up will appear in English.

As for the PDF problem, I don't know what to tell you. I just tried it from the Adobe Acrobat Reader to Notepad by copying the entire text out of this document and it pasted just fine into Notepad. Maybe the PDF you tried is in some other format. Some things to try. One, in Photoshop, make sure you already have a Japanese font selected in Photoshop BEFORE you paste. You might try the same thing in Notepad. Set the font to either a Japanese font or a Unicode font. The default Japanese fonts are:

MS ゴシック
MS 明朝

The default unicode font is

Arial Unicode MS

I'm not sure if that will help though. Sorry I can't be more help. Maybe someone else has an idea.

Japanese used above:

設定 = せってい = settei = settings
全般 = ぜんぱん = zenpan = general
その他 = そのほか = sonohoka = other, misc
メニューおよびダイアログで使用する言語

メニュー　= menyuu = menu
および = oyobi = polite from of "and"
ダイアログ = daiarogu = dialog (dialog box, not speech)
使用 = しよう = shiyou = a polite form of "use"
言語 = げんご = gengo = language
In other words, "Language to use for menus and dialogs"

自動設定 = じどうせってい = jidou settei = automatic setting

posted by greggmanAugust 17, 2004 at 8:57 [ e ]

Hi greg,

I followed your article but I have one problem. When I try to input text under hiragana, I can only type in A, I, U, E, O. All the other letters are blank! Thanks for your attention.

posted by ShoAugust 22, 2004 at 2:02 [ e ]

try typing 2 letters

for example:

k = nothing

ka = か

posted by greggmanAugust 22, 2004 at 3:52 [ e ]

Hi Greg,

That isn't the problem. Even if I do type ka, I get a blank and then the letter 　あ. So if I were to type kakikukeko I would get あ　い　う　え　お

posted by ShoAugust 22, 2004 at 10:56 [ e ]

I'm having the exact same problem as Sho--I can only type vowels (both hiragana and katakana). I've been using XP IME for a while, and am just trying to get it going on my new PC. Somehow I managed to install it properly on my old one. I've searched around and found quite a few people with the same problem, but no resolutions. If anyone figures it out, please email me at sarahgossett -at- msn.com

posted by SarahAugust 25, 2004 at 11:51 [ e ]

Language Bar doesn't show up.

Hi - Great site!

I'm using WinXP Professional - I recently upgraded form WinXP Home Edition. WHen I had the HOme edition, the Japanese IME worked fine .. now, I can't get anything to show up on the language bar at all.

When I go to Preferences|Language Bar, it always has "Turn off advanced text services" selected. If U unselected it, clock OK, and then check it again, it's just clicked again.

Any ideas/

Thanks in advance.

posted by KentoSeptember 1, 2004 at 22:53 [ e ]

Old IME on XP

I have the Windows 2000 version of the downloadable IME on my computer. I installed it when i had Windows XP Pro and then i tried to install it again out of curiosity if it would let me since i kept reading that it would not let you. But i have i the downloadble one on my XP pro. That's my point. lol ^_^

posted by bekkiSeptember 13, 2004 at 19:10 [ e ]

Downloadable IME

You shouldn't have the downloadable IME installed on XP or 2K. Both support the full IME by just going to the control panel and turning it on. The downloadable IME (called Active IME) is not fully system integreated. It only works in programs that are aware of it (which are Office Products, Internet Explorer and JWPCE). The built in one is system wide and will attempt to work in any program. Of course whether a particular program can handle Japanese is another problem.

posted by greggmanSeptember 13, 2004 at 22:13 [ e ]

only vowels

When i go to type in notepad or microsoft word the only japanese characters that show up are the vowels...no consonants will show whatsoever

posted by AnthonySeptember 14, 2004 at 18:10 [ e ]

o_O

I still have the IME for 98 on my XP pro. It wont even let me get rid of it and put the system integrated one on! I did your tutorial exactly and there was no language bar and the little IME for 98 box is still there. I rebooted and everything. o_O

posted by bekkiSeptember 15, 2004 at 16:24 [ e ]

^_^;;

Never mind that... I forgot to turn the "Advanced Text" stuff on... Blonde moment there... ^^;;

posted by bekkiSeptember 15, 2004 at 18:44 [ e ]

Fixing the missing consonant problem

This is for all you XP users who don't seem to be able to type anything but vowels using the Japanese language in XP. I had this same problem and just fixed it, so you may find this helpful.

The cause of the problem is most likely that you (like me) didn't realize XP had built in Japanese language support and so went and downloaded or installed a previous version of IME. This apparently screws up the built-in XP support big-time (I was having lots of buggy stuff happen besides the vowel problem... distorted icon graphics, random toolbar items being selected and unselected, etc.).

The solution for me was to first uninstall the downloaded version of IME (use the installer program that you downloaded, it's got repair and uninstall options as well).

Next I went back and removed all non-English language support from Windows XP. Basically, go to the Regional and Language Options page and uncheck the box for "Install files for East Asian languages." This will uninstall the (corrupted, I believe) Japanese files. To be on the safe side I pretty much set everything in the various tabs here to what they were when XP was first installed, but just uninstalling East Asian languages is probably sufficient.

You'll have to reboot for the settings to take effect. Now you can start over with the directions on this site and re-enable native Windows XP Japanese language support. Everything works great for me now and hopefully it will work for you too!

--Jared

posted by JaredOctober 24, 2004 at 1:29 [ e ]

japanese keyboard

I'm not sure if I'm missing something in your highly detailed and extremely helpful tutorial, but I am a user of a US version of Windows but have a Japanese keyboard installed on my computer. Windows recognized the keyboard and installed it automatically, I suppose, as a U.S. keyboard. I followed your directions, but I have to type for instance "T-O" to get the single character for "to," I thought I would be able to just type using the japanese characters on my keyboard (so that I could write "to" with a single keystroke). How do I get this to work?

Thanks

posted by anthonyOctober 26, 2004 at 1:01 [ e ]

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