Use your PC to Master Japanese and Chinese
With Asian language documents, the situation is even more complex because not
only are there format codes to worry about, the text encoding is variable in
two specific ways:
encoding method(D-
-
3),
and
symbol set(D-
-
7).
Japanese Document Formats are Easy
Taking the lead for standardization, the Japanese have developed a system
specifying only two basic encoding methods:
Shin JIS(D-
-
7)
and
Shift JIS(D-
-
7).
These methods share one standard
symbol set(D-
-
7)
called JIS
levels(D-
-
5)
I, II and III. In addition, westerners have come up with two
related formats, here called
Escape JIS(D-
-
3)
and
Unix Japanese(D-
-
8).
Proprietary
format codes(D-
-
3)
can cause incorrect or additional characters in a document converted
from a Japanese word processor, but all Japanese word processors we have
tested can read and display an unformatted JIS document converted from Smart
Characters.
In some cases, a document's format codes get in the way of conversion, and the
result is really a new
document format(7-
2),
such as the Fujitsu Oasis document format. Some manufacturers have chosen to
not follow a standard, making their products incompatible and their
customers captive.
Smart Characters Document Format
Because Smart Characters supports multiple languages with annotations, the
extra information contained in the Smart Characters document file cannot be
converted to less comprehensive formats without loss. Although Smart Characters
supports most
symbol set(D-
-
7),
native Chinese standards do not support Japanese characters, and vice versa. No
native format supports annotations, so they cannot be exported without losing
their relationship to the text.
Chinese Use Two Main Formats
The
Big Five(D-
-
1)
(Big-5) traditional and
GuoBiao(D-
-
4)
(GB)
simplified(4-
10)
Chinese standards are widely used, but various other formats exist as well. If
you run into one of these, Apropos can try to assist you in your document
conversions. Contact
Apropos Customer Service(F-
-
1)
for details.
Copyright © 1996 Apropos, Inc.