For English Win 98/Me/NT users, in order to display and input CJK on the browser, the easiest way to do it is to download and install the Microsoft Global Input Method Editors (IMEs) of the language(s) that you need (each language is a separate package). This is the system extension that provides the language support to your English Windows system when you are using Internet Explorer. Select the "with language pack" option if you do not have any related character set on your machine. The IMEs allow you to input CJK, while the language pack is the character set that you need to display the particular language. If you are an Office XP users, the Global IMEs will not work for you, you will need to install a new version of the IMEs for Office XP users. All versions of IMEs however only work with Microsoft products (some exceptions, e.g. do not work on MS Work). If you need to write CJK on a non-Microsoft product, you will need a third party program to do that.
For Netscape Communicator 4.x, you need to install the fonts from Microsoft (the input system will not work for Netscape) and set the browser by going to Edit > Preference > Appearance > Fonts. Select "Traditional Chinese" for Big5, or "Simplified Chinese" for GB(K). Set the Variable/Fixed width font as "MingLiU" for encoding Traditional Chinese and "MS Song" for the Simplified. For encoding Japanese, choose MS Gothic (or MS Mincho if you don't have MS Gothic). For encoding Korean, choose Gulim.
For English Win 2000/XP Professional version users, the system should have the multilingual capacity if you have the right installation. The Global IMEs are not necessary on Windows 2000 since that OS has full-featured East Asian input support built in. You just need to activate the capacity. If your system do not have the pre-installation of the multilingual capacity, the system will ask for the Windows 2000/XP CD when you go through the set up procedures. Once you insert the CD, the system will install what it needs automatically.
To activate the multilingual capacity on Win 2000, double-clicking on the Regional Options at the Control Panel. Under the General tab, check on the language that you want to add from the Language Settings for this System box. You can check on multiple languages. After that you need to go to the Input Locales tab and Add the particular input system that you want. A small Add Input Locale dialogue box will pop up, scroll down and select the particular language that you want, a list of Keyboard layout/IME will be available for your choice. You can only set one language or one keyboard layout at a time, just go through the same procedures for any additional language/layout. Here is an instruction showing you how to set up the system for Japanese language, but it works exactly the same way for Chinese and Korean. You can find information here for installing East Asian Language support on Win XP.
Web pages with appropriate META tags will be automatically displayed in the corresponding language, otherwise you will have to manually select the appropriate encoding for character set from View > Encoding for Microsoft IE or View > Character set for Netscape. If you need to type CJK language on the Internet Explorer (e.g. doing a search), click on the En icon (language indicator) located on the windows task bar at the right bottom corner of your screen, and select the language mode you need for the input. For Netscape, you will need a third party input system (e.g. NJStar Communicator) to type non-English language on the browser. The Microsoft input system will not work for Netscape.
For a general description on the CJK input method, please go to Learn about CJK input methods. Specific information on input methods is available for Japanese and Korean.
Alternative way to view CJK is to use third party software that add onto your Windows OS. You can find free demo for NJStar Communicator at NJStar for reading CJK on the Web. It is a shareware for Windows 95/98/NT/2000. The free demo has a 30 days trail period but it doesn't seem to expire after that.
- How to use Microsoft Global IMEs
- How to use the language bar in Win XP
- Learn about CJK input methods
- Chinese text computing on PC (by Jun Da)
- Chinese text computing on Mac (by Jun Da)
- Chinese computing (Asian Library, University of Michigan)
- Chinese computing
- Chinese IME
- Using Japanese language on your computer (PC and Mac)
- How to use Japanese with English Windows (all versions) (By Young Joon Moon)
- Japanese computing
- Guide to Japanese computing (Technical Japanese Program, UW)
- Internet, e-mail and word-processing in Japanese (Win 9x/NT)
- Hangul and Internet in Korea FAQ
- How to read/write Hangul on the Internet
- Microsoft Mactopia (detail information on Microsoft Mac products)
