Read Chinese Under MS-Windows - Chinese Systems

Last updated March 20, 1999. H~_~_~A~_~_~P~_~_~P~_~_~Y~_~_~N~_~_~E~_~_~T~_~_~T~_~_~I~_~_~N~_~_G

This page is re-organized and is solely for discussion on Free/Shareware or Demo Chinese systems for Windows3.1x, Windows95 and WindowsNT. For other Chinese applications under Windows (3.1x/95/NT), please click HERE. Chinese in Images section is at This Location.

Those discussed here are Chinese add-on environments to MS English Windows (3.1x, 95 and NT). They are used to create a Chinese environment so that you don't have to buy MS Chinese Windows in either BIG5 (HK and Taiwan) or GB (Mainland China and Singapore) in order to view/write Chinese in Windows' applications, including Internet Applications, such as NetScape, MSIE, or Mosaic. For users of Windows95 and NT3.5, 4.0 English versions, you may use MS Chinese extension (adding Chinese system fonts to your system), please access HERE.

Almost all files from Internet are in compressed form so you need unpacking tools to decompress them unless the file is self-extracting (files ending with .exe). They all have an installer, so it should be fairly easy to install. Since there are too many such software now, I don't have time to maintain a step by step installation guide for each of them. Please visit the corresponding Web site for more information.

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Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
Microsoft has just released its final version of IE5.0 (March 18, 1999) and one feature that is of interest here, is the enhanced Chinese support (or International language supports). After the installation of two Chinese fonts (BIG5 & GB), it will display BIG5, GB and HZ codes. When you finished IE5.0 installation, including the two Chinese fonts, and run IE5.0 for the first time, you should see a little language control icon at your right side of task bar (inside the system tray) like Tray Icon. You may add Chinese languages (GB & BIG5) at several places like Control Panel -> Internet Options -> General -> Languages... -> Add -> select Chinese there ... The same is available at IE5.0 window under Tools. Another place you may do this is right click the language control icon -> Properties... -> Add -> ... When the above is done, you may see the added Chinese either by left clicking the language control icon or View -> Encoding at IE5.0 window. By the way, you may put Encoding item to your IE5.0 toolbar by pointing at toolbar, right click it -> Customize... -> Add Encoding (to the right side).

Language codes can also be "Auto-Selected", from View -> Encoding -> Auto-Select. I had no problem with GB & BIG5, but HZ code is not auto-displayed. Of course, with manual selection, HZ is displayed correctly most of the time. They need to work on HZ code.

Some of you already know that it is possible to input Chinese in web based forms, Outlook express and Outlook98. Microsoft calls it IME (Input Method Editor). A brief test indicated that web based form input is just fine while having trouble with input in Outlook98 (could be due to the fact that I installed Outlook earlier). The IE5.0 setup will install IME to your harddrive and the help file shortcuts can be found by clicking Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Global IME, so it is not necessary to list the "how-to" here.

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Comparison of Chinese Systems
Name Support Codes in Works with Win Available at Notes
GB Big5 HZ 3.1x 95 NT*
Chinese Star: BeiJing | NA Y Y N Y Y Y cstar.zip [IFCSS] Have the best GB display result.
Chinese Ware Y Y N Y N N chdemo.zip [IFCSS]  
CWEB View Y Y N ? Y Y cwebview.zip [IFCSS] A Viewer.
Magic Win Y Y Y Y Y N Magic Win A Multilingual Viewer
NanJi Star Y Y Y Y Y Y njwin1x.zip [NJS| IFCSS] Its new version 1.5: works under Win3.1x/95 & WinNT (16&32-bit), auto detects GB, Big5, HZ and ISO-2022-CN, and auto supports FanTiZi/ JianTiZi conversion.
ChinesePro 5.01 Y Y Y Y Y N Its Website  
RichWin For Internet China US Y Y Y Y Y N One big file or smaller ones. Try their Web sites. Very good auto-GB, BIG5 and HZ displays. **.
Twin Bridge Y Y Y Y Y N cp401dmo.zip [IFCSS] The box Mapping All English Fonts to Chinese should be checked. See below. A stable system. Its recent release AsianViewer 1.0 can auto-dispaly GB/HZ/BIG5 codes, please check its Web site.
Union Way Y Y Y Y Y Y uwcjk40x.zip [UW| IFCSS] Easy to setup, occassionally its uwtools.dll causes GPF.
Client Software Tested
NetScape WS Gopher 1.2 Win Mosaic MS Internet Explorer Free Agent 1.0 Trumpet News reader
Testing of the Three Chinese Codes
GB HZ BIG5

Notes:

*NT - All browsers used under NT should be 16-bit.

**RichWin Internet new version (4.3 final beta) has a very useful feature: Auto-HZ detection (it will show Chinese on your screen if you have GB, HZ, BIG5 codes together!). No more switching is needed. Under Win95, this works with both 16- and 32-bit browsers.

How to enable auto-HanZi:

a) Start RichWin and you will see four items on a little horizontal bar, use your left mouse button and click the first item from the left -> check the GB code on the menu;

b) Use your left mouse button and click the right most item (4th from the left) -> three rows will appear, target at the third item from the left (enable Auto-HZ) on the first row and click it (keep the item depressed).

If the HZ/BIG5 coded text was already on your screen, you need to refresh the screen to get the Chinese display.

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Frequently asked questions

1. Can I read Chinese under NetScape2.0 or above and MS-IE without a Chinese System?

The answer is YES for those who are running Win95 and NT4.0 and No for users of Windows3.1x. For NT3.51 and MSIE4.0, see below.

Thanks to Leon Mar (Leon.Mar@PoBox.Com.au) who told me about the BIG5 font. For WindowsNT4.0 users, the NT4.0 CD (English version) has a "LANGPACK" (check this subdirectory) which includes an NT Chinese font (BIG5 only, according X. Zang of MS, US version also has a GB font). The setup info file is "TCHINESE.INF", please read the "README.TXT" for installation instructions.

For those without the NT 4.0 CD, you can download the GB and BIG5 fonts from IFCSS or CND FTP sites. The GB font is called ie3lpkcn.exe, get it from: IFCSS or CND. The font for BIG5 is called ie3lpktw.exe, get it from: IFCSS or CND. Just run either of them to install the font.

After you have finished the installation of the GB and BIG5 fonts (you run the file ie3lpkcn.exe or ie3lpktw.exe under your system, say Windows Explorer) and rebooted your system, you can start your browser (MSIE or NetScape). Load a page/file, let's take BIG5 "MingLiU" as an example, say, This One. On NetScape, click Options -> General Preferences... -> Fonts -> select Chinese (Big5) and MinLiU font for both the proportional and fixed fonts. Click Options -> Document Encoding -> check Traditional Chinese (BIG5).

Notes: According to Joe Chung (jchung@navio.com), who tested both NetScape 3.0 and 3.01 on Big5 font, the above operation sequence is important or one may fail the font setup in NetScape (Joe, thanks). Although most feedbacks are positive about using MS fonts in NetScape, some still fail to get them to work. If you can't live without NetScape and are brave enough to play with Regedit of your system, please have a look at The Secret About Browsing Chinese/Japanese/Korean HTML With Netscape Navigator 3.0 On US version of Windows 95 or NT by Frank Tang. There you can also find how to install the fonts onto WinNT3.5. There is another page for the same topic by Patrick Pang.

On MS-IE, click View -> Options... -> Appearance -> select MinLiU font. If you are using MS-IE 3.01/3.02, click View -> Options... -> General -> Font Settings ... (at the lower right corner) -> select MinLiU font.

Do the same for the GB coded page/files, select either "MS Song" or "MS Hei". After the font is installed and MS-IE setting is done, you should see an extra icon beside the little globe at the right bottom corner of your IE, like:

Click the icon, you will get:

With this in place, you are free to change between Western and Chinese languages easily (thanks go to Eddie Cheung for reminding me of this).

Microsoft has released its official version of IE4.0 on September 30, 1997. After the installation of IE4.0 on you system, please re-visit Microsoft site for its IE4.0 Add-ons. The installation of Chinese fonts (GB and Big5) are automatic from donwloading to installation (MS will poke your system and determine what you got on your computer and what you can add/upgrade). After you've restarted the computer, you are ready to read Chinese pages written in GB, HZ, and Big5 by clicking View -> Fonts -> Chinese (select GB2312, HZ, or Big5). Select HZ seems to work with both GB and HZ. When you load the first Chinese page and select the corresponding Chinese font, Chinese characters may not show up, even after Refresh (press F5). Try to load another Chinese file, it should work. Unfortunately, those available Chinese Add-ons don't seem to work with IE4.0. According to Shiwei Guan (October 10, 1997) NJSTAR 1.58 works with IE4.0.

Besides MS fonts, there are other fonts available. An anonymous user at UT-Austin suggested UnionWay fonts and Anthony R. Brach of Harvard suggested Bitstream Cyberbit Unicode Font. Thank you guys.

Wu Jiannan has kindly advised me that Chinese viewer - Mview works well under NT3.51. Here is the MAIL I got.

2. Can I use TwinBridge or UnionWay as Helpers?

No. Those are used as an add-on Chinese environment to your English MS-Windows (3.1x, WFWG3.11, Win95 or WinNT3.5x) so all your 16-bit applications can display Chinese. If you have one of them started and then try to configure it as a Helper application, you will get This program can not be run again! in UnionWay (in my system this even causes GPF - another BUG in UW!) and nothing will happen in TwinBridge.

For external Chinese helpers, please see this section.

3. How can I check the box in TwinBridge

To enable English Windows to show Chinese, you should check the box Mapping All English Fonts to Chinese. Start TwinBridge, click the second icon on the left column -> Chinese Configuration... -> Chinese Font Setting (the transparent box on the top left corner) -> check the box Mapping All English Fonts to Chinese (the bottom item on the central column). Now you should be ok. Try TB Web Site if you have further questions.

4. I Installed TwinBridge (or UnionWay) Correctly, I Still See Garbage. Why?

This is caused mostly by the incorrect setting of Chinese code for the add-on system. Suppose you have installed UnionWay and started it in GB mode, then you point your NetScape browser to a Web page written in BIG5 code, you will definitely see garbage on screen. All you need is to click the first item on the horizontal bar and enable Big5.

5. Will Those Chinese Add-ons Work Under Other MS-Systems?

I have been told that those Chinese add-ons do not work well under MS Japanese and German Windows. Since I don't have those systems, I can't confirm or deny the information. If any one has made one of those work, I would like to hear from you in order to help those who are dying to get it to work. Thanks.

Korean MS-Windows: Li Yi <yili@samsung.co.kr> has reported that Richwin works well in a Korean MS-Windows.
German Windows and Twinbridge: Jens Damm <jensdamm@zedat.fu-berlin.de> sent me THIS message concerning the subject.

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© Shunguo Liu <cathay@cathay.net>