Reading Chinese Text on the Internet

on the PC

There are two types of Chinese encoding methods commonly used in websites: "Big5" for Traditional Chinese, and "GB" for the Simplified Chinese. When you browse a web page that contains "Big5" or "GB" codes, your browser needs to have Chinese language support to be able to display the Chinese. There are two ways to get the language support:

1) The easiest way is to install Chinese fonts into your computer and then configure your browser to use these fonts. These fonts can be used to read Chinese in your browser only. They do not enable you write Chinese or read in other applications. Follow the instructions for Internet Explorer or Netscape.

2)The alternate method is to purchase any one of the several Chinese language packages listed below. These will allow you to read and write in your browser and in other Windows applications such as Word or Excel.
NJStar
TwinBridge

A. Download Chinese Fonts for Internet Explorer:

1.	Download Traditional Chinese font (Big5) here. Download Simplified Chinese font (GB) here.
2.	Execute the downloaded file "ie3lpktw.exe" for Traditional Chinese (Big5) or "ie3lpkcn.exe" for Simplified Chinese (GB). You will need to reboot your system to make the Chinese fonts available to the browser.
3.	If you install the fonts and still are unable to read Chinese web pages, select "Fonts" under the "View" menu in the browser, then click "Chinese Traditional (Big5)" or "Chinese Simplified (GB)" to enable the Chinese font.

B. Download Chinese Fonts for Netscape Navigator :

1.	Download Traditional Chinese font (Big5) here. Download Simplified Chinese font (GB) here. (These are Microsoft font packages, but they work just fine in Netscape)
2.	Execute the downloaded file "ie3lpktw.exe" for Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) or "ie3lpkcn.exe" for Simplified Chinese (China). Reboot the system to make the Chinese fonts available to the browser.
3.	Go to browser's Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts page, for "For the Encoding", select Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese. Make sure that the appropriate font is set for "Variable Width Font" (select MingLiU for Traditional Chinese or select MS Song for Simplified Chinese).
4.	If you still cannot read Chinese webpages, click the browser's "View" menu item, move to "Encoding", then click "Traditional Chinese (Big5)" or "Simplified Chinese (GB)" to enable the Chinese font.

On the Mac

The installation program for Traditional and Simplified Chinese(and Arabic, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean) can be found on your Mac OS 8.5 or higher Install disk. (Mac OS 8.5/Software Installers/Multilin.InternetAccess). Execute this program to automatically install Chinese language support. Keep in mind that this will allow you to read Chinese text only. If you need to input Chinese characters, you must purchase Apple's Chinese Language Kit.
Further information can be found at the Apple Information pages concerning "Multilingual Internet Access"
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