Thank you for your purchase of Apropos Smart Characters for
Windows. Smart Characters is a Chinese and Japanese word processor,
reading, writing, translating, and learning tool specifically designed to help
non-native speakers communicate in the hard-to-master Asian languages. Unlike
native word processors, Smart Characters provides extensive annotations and
cross referencing capabilities to assist less fluent users. Alternatively,
fluent users can hide the annotations and use Smart Characters like a native
word processors to create documents that can be used later by persons with only
minimal foreign language skills. The result is an effective tool for word
processing, business communications, translating, and foreign language study.
Typical Japanese or Chinese documents are laborious for non-native speakers to
read because they use ideographic characters that are difficult to learn,
remember, or look up in a dictionary. Even authors find that they frequently
cannot read their own work after some time because they have forgotten the
sound or meaning of the characters they used. Smart Characters solves this
problem by treating words as objects containing not only the text a native
would read, but also annotations that enable even beginners to understand and
work with the text. These annotations include variable word spacing, glosses
(short translations), and pronunciations. Japanese pronunciations are displayed
as furigana, tiny hiragana characters that give the pronunciation of each
kanji. Chinese pinyin or bopomofo decipher each hanzi. Additionally, you can
probe with the cursor to reveal character numbers, romaji, and pinyin, and
query Chinese characters to display pronunciations, words, and phrases that use
those characters. You can further annotate each word with English notes or
translations, and adjust word spacing to aid comprehension, or turn word
spacing off for a traditional grid format. Pronunciations and notes display and
print in four styles, or can be hidden for printing, fax transmission, or
reading practice.
Those who write only occasionally know how vexatious and time consuming it is
to have to stop and look up each word manually, especially when the correct
characters are uncertain, unknown, or forgotten. Using Smart Characters, there
is no need to interrupt your train of thought: type a sentence, a paragraph, or
your entire document in romaji, kana, bopomofo, pinyin, and English and convert
to Chinese characters as you type, or later at your convenience. Enter Chinese
and Japanese phonetically by syllable, word, or phrase, using Smart Characters
dictionaries that display pronunciations and English translations to eliminate
guesswork and speed selection. Search for a forgotten word's English
translation, or cross reference another character and select it from a list.
Practically speaking, these language assistance tools make the critical
difference between actually being able to read and write in Chinese and
Japanese, or not.
Smart Characters speeds up text entry with partial dictionary matching,
keystroke and user dictionary macros, and an automatic user glossary capable of
storing up to 1000 words, names, phrases, or entire sentences. Insert any
phrase instantly into the text with just one or a few keystrokes. Multiple
document editing windows allow easy cut and paste, comparison, and translation.
A hierarchy of user glossaries and dictionaries plus the ability to define
arbitrary input methods makes Smart Characters uniquely adaptable to multi-user
environments. Because the annotations Smart Characters automatically inserts
when typing are unnecessary for and distracting to native speakers, they can be
hidden for printing, faxing, exporting as graphics to English word processors,
or reading practice. Intended for use in offices employing both native and
non-native speakers, Smart Characters in fluent mode emulates native word
processors by converting pronunciation to kanji and hanzi automatically, and
displaying text on a fixed grid: hiding, but not discarding, the annotations.
For large projects, Smart Characters offers optional unlimited file size
editing and video resolution up to two full side-by-side pages.
Smart Characters recognizes and preserves stylistic differences by using a
character set of over 7700 characters that supports the simultaneous use of
both Japanese and Chinese characters in a single document. Yet, sometimes 7700
characters are not enough. Rare, obsolete, or special characters or graphic
symbols can be created using Smart Characters' font editor, and added to the
user dictionary for instant access. Uniquely, these user-defined characters can
be embedded into a text document for e-mail transmission and display on any
Smart Characters system.
Smart Characters comes with 16 and 24 point combined Japanese and Chinese
fonts, which are suitable for faxes and daily correspondence. Accessory bitmap
fonts can be added for higher resolution printing. The optional DoubleByte
TrueType font accessory allows using Japanese and Chinese high resolution
TrueType fonts without running Japanese or Chinese DOS or Windows. Smart
Characters typographic controls include character set, typeface and style,
point size, leading, kerning, and margins and indents. Smart Characters is
compatible with standard text files and documents created by other Chinese and
Japanese word processors, and creates documents that can be used by them,
uploaded to a network, or e-mailed. OLE client and server support add import
and export flexibility. Artwork, spreadsheets, etc., from any Windows
application can be imported into a Smart Characters document. Characters,
words, phrases, and pages can be exported for use by almost any Windows
application. Uniquely, Smart Characters supports range name exporting to allow
common vocabulary lists that can be accessed using English names.
Fluency requires the ability to read without using Smart Characters reading
tools; however mastery of Chinese characters and vocabulary is notoriously
difficult and time-consuming, especially for non-native speakers. But with
Smart Characters' built-in intelligent flash card tutor, the once onerous task
of memorization becomes an enjoyable experience. By monitoring your history of
correct responses and recall time, then concentrating on the words and phrases
you find hardest, the tutor helps you develop instant recall rapidly and
effectively. You can select from the library of User's Group lessons, or create
your own vocabulary lessons
.
By compiling a list of unrecognized words in a document, then feeding the list
to the vocabulary tutor, you learn to recall the vocabulary with a one-quarter
second response time. After this drill, you can read the document fluently like
a native speaker, without notes. The forward and reverse vocabulary drills are
also useful for English study. Beyond vocabulary, Smart Characters displays and
edits hypertext to create and use sophisticated interactive lessons to teach
and learn complex topics such as grammar and usage.
The traditional practice of relying on translators (human, and soon, machine)
frequently leads to misunderstandings and unintended consequences, as well as
isolation from the target native language, culture, and mindset. This isolation
has not been beneficial to organizations wishing to increase their
effectiveness in international arenas. Smart Characters takes an interactive
approach to language and multicultural communication, encouraging the user to
think in the target native language, and create communications that are the
writer's own work, which the writer fully understands, and can be checked and
reviewed by persons with only a minimum of language experience. Smart
Characters documents demonstrate earnestness, not thoughtlessness, and can be
transmitted without fear of sending erroneous and potentially insulting
messages to your reader.
Easy pronunciation and gloss annotation using a variety of on-line resources
makes Smart Characters especially suitable for high quality translation work.
Translators can accelerate the time-consuming hand annotation process by
importing existing text from native word processors, then using Smart
Characters' reading and cross-reference tools to add pronunciations, English
glosses, and word spacing. To do this, users select one or more characters,
then query a Chinese character dictionary to yield a list of words and phrases
that use the selected characters. Smart Characters accelerates hand annotation
of characters in magazine articles and other materials not available in
electronic form by radical and stroke lookup, a method of finding Chinese
characters in which recognizable shapes are used to identify a specific
character. Once identified, the character, now in electronic form, can be
queried as above.
The incomplete and frequently inscrutable commands, menus, and help screens
typical of Asian word processors can frustrate even native speakers. In
contrast, Smart Characters' entire hypertext User's Guide is on-line to provide
immediate comprehensive context sensitive help when you need it.
Smart Characters for Windows runs on 386 and higher PCS with a minimum of 4mb
RAM running enhanced mode Windows 3.1. You can customize Smart Characters for
special purposes. Smart Characters' modular open architecture benefits users by
reducing software costs to a fraction of what they would otherwise be, while
allowing customization in ways that more restrictive products cannot
accommodate. You can supplement or create your own menus and help screens in
any language you prefer. Your user dictionary and dynamic glossary have their
own windows for instant updates. You can acquire or create your own accessory
interactive hypertext dictionaries and references and use them in a window, or
install them for instant access. The optional radical and stroke dictionaries
make handy rapid reading tools. You can create and edit very large documents or
dictionaries with the unlimited file size editing accessory. Other accessories
include versions for multiple users, fonts for high resolution printing,
sorting and dictionary building utilities, text to speech synthesis, and
automatic annotation for machine-aided translation. Products in development
include optical Chinese character recognition, and full machine translation
software for quick translations. Additionally, Smart Characters for
Students is perfect for a slower computer (e.g., XT and AT), or whenever
the Windows environment is not desirable.
Smart Characters is not copy protected, but you need a separate software
license for each computer that you use, or a network license for concurrent
users. Smart Characters uses a license registration process for a variety of
purposes: to differentiate fully functional software from demonstration copies,
to identify host machines to keep user characters (rare Chinese characters you
create and use) distinct, and to facilitate instant updates and upgrades via
network, modem, or telephone.
Use your PC to Master Japanese and Chinese