Chinese Word Processing

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

I am in fact a registered user of NJStar, widely considered the best of the DOS
Chinese programs. It is neat for character input, superior to TwinBridge,
which I have tried, since you can use tones as well as PinYin and avoid
slogging through long lists of homophones. But it is useless for formatting
anything more complex than a letter. You can set a few things like page
dimensions, italics, etc., but the original word processor markup (e.g.,
underline, footnotes, running heads) doesn't work, since you have to print
through NJStar. I would be surprised but delighted to find that any similar
program works through XyWrite, as TwinBridge works through any Windows word
processor.

But in other respects TwinBridge is for the birds. If a character you want
isn't in the mere 7000+ it provides (even in Big5), you have to make it,
install it manually in every single font, and then draw a screen version
freehand. Quite OK if you have no other use for your time. And every time you
switch to Chinese, you also have to manually switch font, etc., etc.
Definitely not designed for power users.

-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325