michel@etl.go.jp (Michel Pasquier) (07/24/90)
This is a bug report concerning MicroSoft Word 4.0 and the usage of Japanese fonts. Namely, Word does not handle properly the JIS code. I am posting this in comp.sys.mac.apps because I have already seen a couple of requests concerning word-processing in Japanese and I think this might be of interest too some people, and also because I do not know any people at MicroSoft to send this directly to. I must confess I am a MacIntosh freak and I do love MS Word (don't flame me, it's just my taste - and the one in my lab, also). So I hope that some people at MicroSoft will read this and take it as constructive criticsm, and maybe do something about this bug? Please. As most of us Mac users know, one of the wonderful capabilities of MacIntosh OS is to allow any language to be used transparently, at *system* level. This ability makes it possible to have a Japanese system in the same way you have english, french, german and so on. Since the languages/fonts are handled by the Font-Manager only, it means that they are usable in ANY application you might try on the Mac. Including word processors and desktop publishing applications, drawing and painting programs etc. In theory, at least. In the case of Japanese fonts and MS Word 4.0, it does not work that well... For those who do not know, the fact that Japanese language uses a few thousands characters (in addition to two specific syllabaries) implies that one needs a so-called front-end processor which allows to input these characters through a standard keyboard. KanjiTalk is provided by Apple for this purpose, and does the job well. That is, it processes user's input into desired Japanese characters and then paste them as text in the current application. Provided a Japanese font is selected, the pasted characters are normally displayed, and edition goes on... This works fine with MS Word 4.0 also, except... Except that once one has done so (input some Japanese characters) then *normal* edition is no more possible. Namely, Word gets confused by the length of Japanese characters (16 bits instead of 8) and does not put the cursor at the right place. So it is almost impossible to make any modification to a text once it has been typed. Also, as a side-effect, justification becomes impossible (left or right do work, but full justification and centering are impossible - they appear "shifted" to the left). As a result, MS Word 4.0 CANNOT be used so far to input Japanese text (or mixed Japanese/English etc). Which I regret deeply. For the record, other word-processors I know do NOT have this problem. As MacWrite 5.0 (which I do use, by force, when I must input some Japanese), Nisus 2.041 (I know 3.0 is out but this is only a demo version - a pity we do not have it... - I would recommend it anyway). TeachText works also, for that matter :-). I have no experience with FullWrite or other wordpro's. (If one speaks Japanese, MacWord 2.0 is also a nice word-processor, by the way). I do use MS Word all the time, and I have been really disappointed to have to switch back to MacWrite to be able to input a few Japanese characters in my text... So I really hope this problem will be fixed in the future. Thanks for your attention, -Michel. ps: while I am here, could someone tell me how to have each part of a big document (split for convenience) automatically updated when I modify the style sheet in one of them (I know, I would not have this problem with the PC version). Eg, I have a book split in four ~200K parts and I use 12pts fonts for edition but want 9pts when printing... One modification only would be nice. (And I do not intend to change the Default file, since I do not want all the others documents on the disk to be modified as well!). Thanks for any clue. Another suggestion is to allow relative sizing of text (in style format) in addition to the absolute one used everytime. Eg, if Normal format is in 9 pts I want my Title format in, say, 12 pts, but if I switch Normal to 12 pts then I also want Title to grow to 16 (133%). I have even considered writing a C program to modify the RTF file, but macros would do that better, if available... ps2: I certainly do not want to start a MS Word vs Nisus war (or whatever else). Just let me say that I use MS Word because I have done so since version 1.0 and because it has been the "official" Word-Processor in the labs where I have worked. I really love it, though it could be improved yet (as everything, cf above). But I tried Nisus and have been really impressed by it also, and I personnally find it impossible to tell which is better. They both offer functionalities the other does not have, they are both very powerful and, generally speaking, powerful enough for my needs. Indeed I am glad that *I* did not have to make the choice (yet)... -- ................................................................... Michel Pasquier ........................ AIST/MITI Guest Researcher ElectroTechnical Laboratory . Intelligent Machine Behaviour Section E-mail: michel@etl.go.jp . Tel: 298-58-5964 . Fax: 298-55-1729