Traditionally, East Asian libraries feature unique provisions of printed materials in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (that is, the CJK languages). With the rapid development and wide application of the World Wide Web and other Internet services, resources in these languages are no longer restricted to the physical walls of a library. Instead, they are emerging in large quantifies in cyberspace. Consequently, there is a technical challenge to East Asian librarianship on how to effectively deliver these valuable and often real-time information assets to patrons. This readability challenge extends to any potential information users as well.
Ordinary Web browsers, such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer, do not translate CJK encodes back into the corresponding languages. As a result, even if a Web user happens to surf onto some sites that write in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, he or she usually sees no more than a screen of gibberish. Although there are Microsoft Windows editions for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, respectively, each of these language-specific Windows systems can only deal with one particular language.[
Linguistically, Chinese is very different from Japanese and Korean in syntactic typology. However, the Chinese logographic characters have been used widely in the Japanese and Korean languages for centuries. These characters are known as "hanzi" in China, "kanzi" or "kanji" in Japan, and "hanja" in Korea. Semantically, when Chinese characters were borrowed by Korea or Japan, their basic meanings remained the same in most cases. Orthographically, although there have been language reforms to simplify or standardize the writing systems in China and Japan, numerous characters are still written the same as they were many centuries ago. In this sense, there is a good linguistic foundation for the development of software packages that can be used for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
As a matter of fact, a number of such CJK packages are available on the market. As one sales strategy, the software developers of these packages have been offering the latest evaluation versions of their products on their Web sites. The general public can download and legally use them for a certain period of time. Hence, potential users have the opportunity to select and determine a package most appropriate for their needs before purchasing an official copy, which usually is more functional in fonts and other word processing capabilities.
Because of the multilingual uses of Chinese logographic characters in East Asia, each country or region has developed its own standards in character encoding. In Japan and Korea, encoding also includes their own national characters. Japanese has hiragana and katakana characters, and Korean has hangul characters.2 In fact, more than 50 encoding systems exist for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; they emerged at different times for various operating systems and purposes. The internal codes that follow represent only a few. However, they are widely used and are relevant to the software packages that I will discuss later.
- GB: GB stands for "Guo Biao," which is short for "guojia biaozhun," meaning "national standards." It is commonly used in China and Singapore, more often for the simplified Chinese characters than for the traditional Chinese characters.
- Big5: Developed in Taiwan, Big5 is widely used in Taiwan and Hong Kong for the traditional Chinese characters. Nevertheless, Big5 can also display simplified Chinese characters.
- HZ: HZ is an abbreviation for "han zi" meaning "Chinese characters." It is a simple but powerful Internet convention for GB, commonly used for newsgroups and e-mail.
- ISO-2022-GB: ISO stands for International Standards Organization. ISO2022-GB is a relatively new 7-bit encoding system that uses escape sequences to shift between character sets. ISO-2022-GB is a new international Internet standard for encoding Chinese text.
- Shift-JIS: JIS stands for "Japanese Industrial Standard." Encoding standards developed in Japan all carry the abbreviation "JIS." Originally developed by Microsoft and also known as MS Kanji, SJIS, or DBCS-PC, Shift-JIS is an encoding system most popular in Japan on machines that support MS-DOS or Windows, and also for Macintosh (KanjiTalk or Japanese Language Kit).
- EUC-JIS: EUC stands for "Extended UNIX Code." It is an encoding system from ISO-2022-1993. Primarily used on UNIX systems, EUC-JIS is also popular on PCs.
- 7-Bit JIS: It contains OLD-JIS, NEW-JIS, and NEC-JIS. NEW-JIS is similar to ISO-2022.
- ISO-2022-JP: This is a new international Internet standard for encoding Japanese text.
- KSC5601: "KS" is short for "Korean Standard" and "C" stands for "character set." Commonly known as KSC, it is a very popular code used in Korea.
- IS0-2022-KR: a new international Internet standard for encoding Korean text.
The other two relevant forms of encodes are MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extension) Quoted Printables and Base64. They are commonly used in e-mail headers and newsgroups, including those in CJK.[
One of the criteria in choosing a CJK package is determining how many internal codes it can support--the more the better. However, it is important to understand that the CJK packages I examine in detail in the sidebars are not operating systems. Instead, they are applications that can be used under a certain environment or an operating system, which, in our case, is MS Windows (3.1x and 95). In our library, we use these CJK applications to make these Windows systems capable of reading the CJK languages. Therefore, these CJK applications sometimes are known as CJK add-ons. Once MS Windows is CJK-ready, browsers such as Netscape and MS Internet Explorer (MSIE), which are also applications under MS Windows, will be able to read CJK.
The CJK shareware packages that I have selected are AsiaSurf developed by DynaLab, Inc.; AsianViewer by TwinBridge Software Corporation; AsianSuite 9 by UnionWay International Corp.; and NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows 3.1/95/NT by Hongbo Data Systems, Inc. (more commonly known as NJStar). While all of them can display CJK texts, AsianSuite 97 also possesses some functions in Chinese writing and editing.
See the four accompanying sidebars for detailed information on how to download and use the shareware versions of these CJK applications. They can be found at the following locations:
- AsiaSurf: http://www.asianet.net.hk/regasurf.html or http://www.crystal-int.com/asurfe.htm
- AsianViewer: http://www.ifcss.org/ftp=pub/software/ms-win/c=sys or http://www.twinbridge.com
- AsianSuite97: http://www.unionway.com
- NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows 3.1/95/NT: http://www.njstar.com.au/njwin/#1
Since the packages that I have mentioned here are all evaluation versions, they use the bitmap font. However, you may still change the size of the characters on the screen. For example, in the Netscape browser, you may select Options -> General Preferences...-> Fonts ->. Then you should change the sizes of the proportional fonts and fixed fonts at the same time. Usually, point sizes from 10 to 14 are the approximate sizes for the bitmap CJK fonts. If the point size is too big, say 18, the characters will look jagged. You may also change the look of CJK characters by adjusting the setting through the Netscape Options -> Document Encoding. Then choose Latin 1, or Traditional Chinese (Big5), Japanese (Shift-JIS), or Korean, etc.
For more information about CKJ fonts, you can either check the home pages of the software developers or look into the online documents contained in the software.
For instance, at
If you are interested in word processing functions other than text display, AsianSuite 97 can give you a taste of writing and editing Chinese. You can open a notepad in an accessory folder and start writing Chinese Big5 or GB on it. For more information on the word processing capabilities of AsianSuite 97, see UnionWay AsianSuite User's Guide.
If you need to do advanced word processing in CJK, you may purchase Chinese Partner 4.0 and Japanese Partner 4.0 from TwinBridge Software Corporation. Each is intuitive and user friendly, and can be used with ordinary Windows. Similarly, Hongbo Data Systems, Inc. has developed NJStar Chinese WP 4.10 and NJStar Japanese WP 4.10, capable of processing respectively Chinese or Japanese characters on English or CJK Windows 95, or on Windows NT. The NJStar packages are offered at the company's Web site for free evaluation.
At present, a large number of Web sites write in the CJK languages or have CJK-related materials. Once you have downloaded and installed a CJK add-on package, the best way to access these sites is to first locate and bookmark a super-site that provides numerous links to other sites. The following are some of the sites that I consider informative and interesting:
China:
It is obvious that the management of the site has endeavored to make it encyclopedic. If you are new to the Chinese cyberspace, this site is definitely a good place to start your journey. You can then bookmark the links you like or jump to other sites from there.
Japan:
Korea:
Indeed, if you are interested in East Asian materials, you should visit the home page of the Council of East Asian Libraries at
It is not difficult to make ordinary Windows (3.1x, 95, or NT) read the CJK languages. The crux in this technical linkage is to find a CJK add-on package for the Windows system that you have. Then, download the evaluation copy and install it on your computer or your file server, depending on your needs. If you have a laptop, and you have installed a CJK add-on on its hard disk, you can view CJK texts from anywhere you dial into the Internet for Web services. If you have installed the CJK add-ons under your account on a file server, then you can use the CJK software from any terminal connected to the server. In either situation, your Windows system and its related applications, such as Netscape, will be CJK-ready for text display. Furthermore, should you wish to do CJK language processing other than text viewing, you may obtain evaluation copies of the CJK word processing software from some of the developers' Web sites.
CJK encoding is a developing technology. At present, efforts are being made to unify different encoding systems under the Unicode standards. Therefore, it is expected that the CJK add-on software will be even easier to use. It is also technically possible that ordinary Windows will become CJK-capable with Unicode. By then, CJK add-ons will not be as useful as they are today.
I wish to thank DynaLab, Inc., TwinBridge Software Corporation, Union Way International Corp., and Hongbo Data Systems, Inc. for their generous permission to use their graphics in this article.
1. Liu, Shunguo. "Introduction of Some Basic Concepts." [online]. (March 2, 1997). http:// herb.biol.uregina.ca/liu/pub/c-intro.html.
Liu, Shunguo. "Read Chinese Under MSWindows - Chinese Systems." [online]. (March 2, 1997). http://herb.biol.uregina. ca/liu/pub/ms-win.html.
"How to Display Japanese Characters on Screen." [Online]. (February 27,1997).
- 2. "CJK Code Conversion." [online]. (February 26, 1997). http://www.stonehand.com/unicode/ faq/cjk/conversion.html#ql.
- 3. Lunde, Ken. CJK.INF Version 2.1 (July 12, 1996). [online]. (March 10, 1997). ftp://ftp.ora. com/pub/examples/nutshell/ujip/doc/cjk.inf.
Ni, Hongbo. "NJWIN - NJStar CJK Multilingual Support System vl.5." [online]. Available in the Help section of the NJWlN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 15 for Windows 3.1/95/NT software.
- 4. "AsiaSurf." [online]. (March 3, 1997). http://www.crystal-int.com/asurfe.htm.
- 5. "TwinBridge Internet Partner Series - Asian Viewer V 1.0." [online]. Available in the ReadMe section of the AsianViewer V 1.0 software.
- 6. "UnionWay Home Page." [online]. (February 27, 1997). http://www.unlonway.com.
- 7. "Support." [online]. (February 21, 1997). http://www.unionway.com/support.htm.
- 8. "NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows 3.1/95/NT." [Online] (June 9, 1997). http://www.njstar.com.au/ njwin/#1.
By Zi-Yu Lin
Zi-Yu Lin, Ph.D., is assistant professor/systems librarian at Walsh Library, Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. He can be reached at linziyu@shu.edu.
AsiaSurf is a multilingual system that displays Chinese Big5 and GB, Japanese SJIS and JIS/EUC, and Korean KSC. It works under Windows 3.1/95 of English or other languages versions. It supports Netscape Navigator and MSIE, as well as e-mail applications like Lotus cc:Mail and MS Mail.[
At the first AsiaSurf site, you have to fill in a registration form and send it in before reaching the download screen, where you'll see two choices: "Download Standard Version AsiaSurf," which includes bitmap fonts and outline fonts (about 5.4 MB), and "Download Simplified Version AsiaSurf," which includes only bitmap fonts (about 1.6 MB). You can choose one of them for downloading. The difference between the two versions is in the number of fonts.
Before downloading, you will probably want to create a directory on your C:\ drive or other drives, if your computer is networked to a file server, to hold the file. The file for both the bitmap fonts and outline fonts, ALSTD.EXE, is self-extracting. So, you can simply click on it to decompress it (other terms for this action are "inflate" and "extract"). Then, run the resultant SETUP.EXE file to start the installation. Follow the on-screen instructions. When installation is complete, a folder named AsiaSurf will be created with two icons in it (per Windows 3.1).
To initiate the program, click on the globe icon and you will see a floating palette where TW stands for Chinese Big5 (traditional or simplified characters), JP for Japanese SJIS/JIS (auto detect) and EUC, KR for KSC, CN for Chinese GB (traditional or simplified characters), and A for English, which is the default setting. The slanted downward arrow shows the Document Display Setup.
Whenever a flag icon is clicked, it will wave, indicating the language you want to display. The floating palette can be dragged and moved anywhere on the screen. It is intuitive and straightforward to use AsiaSurf--just click on the icons to select a language. If you see garbled text on the screen, most likely it is caused by an incorrect selection of the TW, JP, KR, CN, and A options. The solution is to switch to the right encoding system.
AsianViewer works under MS Windows 3.1 x and Windows 95 (all Asian and Western language versions), OS/2 Windows, and PowerMac Soft Windows. It supports Chinese Big5, GB, HZ, and ISO-2022-CN; Japanese SJIS, JIS/EUC, and ISO-2022-JP; and Korean KSC5601 and ISO-2022-KR. It enables you to display Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters in Web pages, e-mail, and newsgroups.[
When you are connected to the first AsiaViewer site, you will see a number of files listed alphabetically. Choose ASIANVIEW.EXE, which is 1 MB. After this file is saved in a directory on your hard disk, extract the application files by clicking it. The inflated files take about 1.49 MB of space. Then, run the SETUP.EXE to start the installation. By default, the setup will install AsianViewer at C:\AsianViewer and create a TwinBridge AsianViewer folder, as follows (from Windows 95) in Figure 1:
AsianViewer is also intuitive and user friendly. To initiate the application, click on the first, round icon shown in Figure 1, and you will then have the map you see in Figure 2.
In Figure 2, the large East Asian map will flash by and disappear. However, the ASCII icon (Figure 3), known as the graphic floating Control Center, remains, displaying the current language Figure 2 Figure 3 encode being used. When you point the mouse to the Control Center, the large map will reappear, offering the language encodes the software supports, together with some other functions, as shown in Figure 4.
Notice, nevertheless, that the three maps in Figure 4 are presented for illustrating the functionality and use of the software. In reality, only one map (Figure 2) will appear. To change between different languages and encodes, you can just click on the wanted part of the map first and then choose from the encodes. After that, the map will vanish again.
DIAGRAM: Figure 1: TwinBridge Asian Viewer window
MAP: Figure 2: China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan
DIAGRAM: Figure 3: ASCII icon
DIAGRAM: Figure 4: Language encoding and maps and other functions
AsianSuite 97 supports 16-bit and 32-bit Windows applications processing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean under various Windows environments (3.x, 95, NT, 3.x for WorkGroups).[
At the UnionWay home page, go to the bottom of the page for the Download selection. Click on it, and you will see the download page, which encourages you to download UnionWay AsianSuite 97 for a 60-day free evaluation. You might want to browse through the downloading instructions and then select one version of AsianSuite 97 from the "Click list box to select the Try Before You Buy product" box. (The version of Asian ProPack97 is my choice.)
After submitting your request, you will be given a personal product identification number; keep it for later use. Then click to Display Download Sites. Choose a site and start downloading the UWCJKPRO. EXE file to a directory you have specified. After that, inflate UWCJIKPRO.EXE and install the application by running the SETUP. EXE file. Follow the on-screen instructions. Finally you will have a folder with three icons in it (AsianSuite, Read Me, and FontMaker). Click on the AsianSuite icon with the key and a floating palette appears.
For CJK text display, the first button, Big5, is most frequently used. It can be changed to GB (Chinese), S-JIS (Japanese), EUC (Japanese), KSC (Korean), and ANSI (Western), depending on the language of the text. To close the application, click on the X button.
Other buttons lead to many other functions in word processing. Consult the 187-page UnionWay AsianSuite User's Guide for further details on various capabilities of AsianSuite 97. Available online, this manual can be downloaded at
NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows 3.1/95/NT enables any Windows program to display and print Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters under all language versions of Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows NT (16-bit and 32-bit applications), OS/2 Windows mode, and PowerMac Soft Windows. The CJK encodes that it supports include Chinese Big5, GB, HZ, IS-2022-GB; Japanese SJIS, JIS/EUC, 7-bit JIS, and ISO-2022-JP; and Korean KSC5601 and ISO-2022-KR. At the NJStar Web site, you will find that version 1.5 offers several new features such as a 32-bit module for Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0, as well as the support (on both Windows 95 and NT) for Unicode applications such as Netscape Communicator 4.0 and MSIE 4.0. [
Download NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System Version 1.5 for Windows 3.1/95/NT and extract it. After you run the SETUP.EXE, a folder like the one shown in Figure 5 will be generated (from Windows 3.11):
The starting point for NJWIN CJK Multilingual Support System is the first icon, labeled as v1.5. Click on that to see the NJWIN control center palette. Click on the long button with the word "Auto" and you will see a drop-down menu (Figure 6). This is where you make the choices for displaying different CJK languages.
In Figure 6, "Chinese JianTi" means Chinese simplified characters, whereas "Chinese FanTi" means complicated Chinese characters or traditional Chinese characters. The check indicates the language and character type being selected.
Another important button is the one with a monitor on it, which gives the NJWIN Options for languages you want to support and the Windows system your computer is using. These options are shown in Figure 7.
The question mark button leads you to a useful online help menu, which offers answers to frequently asked questions. The button for closing the application is the one with an X.
DIAGRAM: Figure 5: NJWIN CJK 1.5 window
DIAGRAM: Figure 6: Drop-down menu
DIAGRAM: Figure 7: NJWIN Options
