Internationalization language support

You need to have JavaScript enabled to get the most of our website
Our Webpage Menu will only work on JavaScript enabled browsers.

Home

Quick Menu >

IT > Internationalization > International Language Support

Character sets
Language Fonts

Get language support for your PC

Windows support multilanguage other than the default language set for a computer.
You can find more information from Windows help - You can use Windows to create documents in many different languages. However, to create documents in a Central European, Cyrillic, Baltic, Greek, or Turkish - based languages, you must install multilanguage support.

Tips -

To install language font for displaying document in that language with Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel and the Internet Explorer, you will need a latest version of Web Browser (IE 6 or later), which support download on demand. Go to a Japanese site for the Japanese font download on demand or go to a Chinese site for the Chinese font download on demand etc.

Find the latest Web Browsers here.

CJK

Enabling your Windows application to display CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language)

Windows XP

1. On the Windows Start menu, point to Control Panel, and then click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.

2. Click the Regional and Language Options icon, and then click the Languages tab.

3. In the Supplemental languages support box, check the box for Install East Asian Languages.

4. Click Apply and OK.

Windows 2000 Professional

1. On the Windows Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2. Double-click the Regional Options icon, and then click the General tab.

3. Check the languages you want supported (Japanese; Korean; Simplified Chinese; and/or Traditional Chinese) by clicking in the checkbox next to those languages listed under Language settings for the system. You may need to scroll down to see the language options you want. You may be prompted for a Windows 2000 Professional CD-ROM.

Windows 95/98/NT4 Windows 95/98/NT4 users have to download Asian language support from Microsoft's Web site. Refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base For Windows users to get support for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language).

Enabling your Windows application to input CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language)

You will need the Microsoft Global Input Method Editors (IMEs) - to write in Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese language.

下载 Office XP 工具：
Global IME （简体中文）
Global IME （繁体中文）

For a full-blown Chinese IME - go for the Windows Chinese version
or
try Chinese input systems from the Twin Bridge

Free simplified and traditional Chinese fonts from TwinBridge

For character sets supported by web browsers

You may not be able to input or edit document in that language due to not all languages have the same character set and character map. When one character set conflict with another such as the Baltic languages, or the character set extend beyond a keyboard’s capability, the DBCS (Double-Byte Character Set) format for Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages in this case.

Input method for SBCS (Single-Byte Character Set) Languages

Example system –

Default language:English (UK).
Character set encoding: Western European (windows-1252).
The character set and character map including some French and German characters as usual.
The system has Pan-Europe language support installed which including Baltic and Russian etc.
The standard English keyboard is not designed for Latvian and Russian language hence the difficulty of inputting the Latvian and Russian characters !

Solution – Must to get access to the character map of the language font !
How ? Remember the good old accessory ‘Character Map’ since Windows 3.11, it is still with us up to the Windows 98 SE at least.

With the Character Map, open a Russian font - TT SS Cyrillic. Click on a special character – try the horizontal-flipped letter R ! Character Map magnifying the selected character and at the same time showing the keystroke Alt+0223 for that character at the bottom right corner.

For those who don’t know how to use Alt keystrokes –

Make sure you have the NumLock lit-on by pressing the NumLock key.
Hold down both Ctrl and Alt or ALT keys while typing-in 0223 with the numeric keypads (must be the numeric keypads not the numeric keys above the alphabet keys).

So here we go the ,a slow input method for the occasion !

Top

Input method for DBCS (Double-Byte Character Set) Languages:

Japanese Characters can input via a specially designed keyboard but not Chinese because there are much fewer basic characters in Japanese than in Chinese. It is estimated 13,500 everyday use Chinese characters nowadays. It is impossible to have a 13,500 keys keyboard but evolving to no fewer than a dozen input methods for the Chinese language.

For the none-Chinese Windows users wish to get hold of a good IME (Input Method Editor) for occasional Chinese documents production –

Character codes format:

ANSI

ANSI is the most popular character standard used by personal computers. Because the ANSI standard uses only a single byte to represent each character (SBCS), it’s character map limited to a maximum of 256 character and punctuation codes. Although this is adequate for English, it doesn't fully support many other languages.

DBCS

DBCS is used in Microsoft Windows systems that are distributed in most parts of Asia. It provides support for many different East Asian language alphabets, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. DBCS uses the numbers 0 – 128 to represent the ASCII character set. Some numbers greater than 128 function as ‘lead-byte characters’, which are not really characters but simply indicators that the next value is a character from a non-Latin character set. In DBCS, ASCII characters are only 1 byte in length, whereas Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian characters are 2 bytes in length.

Unicode

Unicode is a character-encoding scheme that uses 2 bytes for every character. The International Standards Organization (ISO) defines a number in the range of 0 to 65,535 (216 – 1) for just about every character and symbol in every language (plus some empty spaces for future growth). On all 32-bit versions of Windows, Unicode is used by the Component Object Model (COM), the basis for OLE and ActiveX technologies. Unicode is fully supported by Windows NT. Although both Unicode and DBCS have double-byte characters, the encoding schemes are completely different.

Character Code Examples

Character codes for "A" in ANSI, Unicode, and DBCS

A	ANSI	&H41
A	Unicode	&H41	&H00
A	DBSC Wide “A” in DBCS system	&H82
A	Unicode Wide “A”	&H21	&HFF

TheDrinkShop
Quality good value Wines & Champagne Online. Madeiras, Muscats, Ports, Red & White Wines, Sherries, Whiskys & Malts ...

Auctionair
A brand new Mini Cooper S last went for £106! Brand new Sony Bravia 40” LCD TV last went for £76! A romantic week for two in the Maldives Min bid: £50. Come see for yourself …

Alpharooms Cheap Flights
Discount Flights – Holidays – Hotels – Transfers – Insurance - Car Hire – Airport Parking …

SeniorFriendFinder
Join half a million members. It's Never too Late to Fall in Love. Join now for FREE !

Affiliate Window
Increase earning potential for your website, join AffiliateFuture's network to earn more revenue from your visitors.

0044.co.uk
International mobile roaming - Global SIM - UK SIM card for visitors. UK Landline Cheap International Calls …

The Whisky Exchange
Find rare Whisky shipping worldwide. Scotch, Irish, Bourbon & Amerocan Whiskey, Japaneese Whiskey, other Whiskey of the world ...

FragranceNet.com
Fragrances for Her and Him and for the Kids - 100% genuine brands - discount up to 70% off ...