Bilingual software questionscompiled by the editors
Stalking the bilingual Mac
Q. For someone who wants to use a Mac in Japan, finding one with an English
system is not easy. Is it possible for me to place the English OS (separate
purchase) onto a system containing the Japanese OS? I would be obliged if
you would outline the procedure.
A: It is possible to have both, but the preferred procedure requires installing
English first, then adding Apple's Japanese Language Kit. (See "Bilingual
Computing: Should You Choose a Mac or Windows 95?" in our February/March
1996 issue, page 26, for more on Apple's JLK.) Unfortunately, in your case,
this means that you have to buy two software products instead of one.
While this approach might be more expensive than you'd hoped for, it is
a stable and workable solution. Apple's approach to bilingual computing
is based on English as the starting point (although any language version
of System 7.x will accept Apple's Language Kits). From the base system,
you can add any Language Kit options: Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese,
or Japanese. This means that you could, if you wanted, install Arabic on
a Japanese version of System 7.5. Not English, though -- because Apple does
not make an English Language Kit. If you want English, it has to be your
original OS.
The other option is, as you suggest, to put two separate systems on your
Mac. This method works best if you have either two separate hard disks (internal
and external), or a large hard drive that has been properly partitioned.
You can place one system on each disk (or partition), then use a utility
like Switcher 1.1 or System Picker 1.0.1 (both shareware). The drawbacks
of this method are that it requires lots of disk space; you'll have to partition
your drive or buy a second hard disk; you have to set up and care for two
systems; and switching back and forth between language versions requires
rebooting (not a big problem if you only use one language intermittently).
English WordPro 96 on Win95J
Q. Microsoft says that English Win95 applications run just fine on Japanese
Windows 95, and I've found that mine do -- more or less. The less part comes
in Lotus WordPro 96. Whenever I try to type a quotation mark or apostrophe
from the keyboard in English WordPro under Win95J, what I get instead is
an unprintable box character. What am I doing wrong (if anything), and how
do I solve it?
A. The solution is simple, but perhaps not obvious. The source of the problem
is that English and Japanese have different uses for the "high ASCII"
characters. To get your apostrophe and quotation keys to work with English
WordPro 96 under Japanese Windows 95, go to the WordPro Edit menu, click
on Smart Correct, and then deselect (uncheck) the "Change straight
quotes to smart quotes" option. You won't be able to use "curly
quotes" any longer, but at least the "straight" apostrophe
and quotation marks will display and print properly.
Q in search of an A
Q. Now, let us turn the tables and use this forum to ask some questions
in the hopes that a knowledgeable reader can answer. We were able to solve
a reader's nonfunctioning quotation and apostrophe keys problem, but we
haven't yet found an answer to one of our staff's own questions: Is it possible
to get opening and closing quotes (Alt-0147 and Alt-0148) to display and
print properly in English WordPro 96 under Win95J? And why does Alt-151
create an irritating cursor positioning problem instead of printing an "em"
dash as it should? (These same key combinations work perfectly with AmiPro
3.1 (WordPro's progenitor) under Japanese Windows 95, after all). Nor have
we been able to figure out how to stop yen signs (¥) from changing
to backslashes (\) each time an English WordPro file is saved under Japanese
Windows 95.
And since we have no WordPerfect users in the office, we haven't been able
to help another reader with his query: "I am using a US computer (Dell)
to run Japanese Windows 95. It runs all applications perfectly except WordPerfect
6.1. For some reason, whenever I type an apostrophe, my computer interprets
that as a "create (Japanese) character" code, so that whenever
I press the next key, I get a kanji. This makes possessives rough
going. I have set the keyboard to English (not ATOK or MSIME), and my environment
in English-US. What is my problem?"
The first reader to solve each of these conundrums will get a free one-year
subscription to Computing Japan.
Next month: Microsoft's (unsupported) WINBOOT -- a third solution to
the Windows 95 multiboot muddle
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