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Post by Doug 周 on Dec 27, 2008 1:55:30 GMT -5
First, I have no Chinese language skill. Also, there are probably more ways to input Chinese text than what I list below. You probably have a Chinese name written on paper (in all likelihood handed down from a relative). The goal is to get this name into the computer as Chinese character text. There are programs based on Pinyin to input Chinese text. These require installing and learning another program and being literate in Chinese characters and Pinyin. The easiest way to input Chinese text is to copy & paste the text that is already on-line. Starting with the surnames, I use this web site: Chinese Surnames Choose from the links. After matching the correct calligraphy name, hold the left mouse button, select & copy the character, then paste the text where you need. Unfortunately this site is only for surnames. For given names, you need to transfer the calligraphy strokes into the computer for interpretation and matching. By using the mouse as a pen, you copy or write the strokes into an input box using this site: www.chinese-tools.com/tools/mouse.html Double-click the correct matching character from the 15 choices offered. You can always undo the previous stroke if you make a mistake or if none of the 15 choices are correct. Others have mentioned this site but I have no experience: www.nciku.com/Fortunately my wife and mother (neither can read Chinese) were taught calligraphy as children and they have a 90% success rate. My lack of calligraphy training gives me only a 40% success rate. One day I need to study this site to learn the stroke order: www.zhongwen.com/shufa/index.html and improve my success rate. However, it is much easier to ask my wife to write with the mouse. Once you have matched the character, you are almost finished. For unknown reasons, the program will not allow you to select & copy the Chinese text; it requires this additional next step. Copy the English definition correlated to selected matched Chinese character and type that definition into this site: www.chinese-tools.com/tools/dictionary.html Again, choose the correct character by matching the calligraphy character. Now you can select, copy, and then paste the Chinese text into the program. If you only find simplified characters, use this program to convert it to a traditional character: www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-simptrad.htmlDoug
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Post by Ah Gin on Dec 30, 2008 2:12:34 GMT -5
Doug, Many thanks for the list of useful web sites. I find the following sites to be quite useful. Thought I will share with the Forum. Using the mouse to write Chinese, and Cut & paste capability: www.nciku.com/ahginoz/myncikuChinese dictionary with cut & paste capability, Cantonese, Pinyin pronounciation etc. usa.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.phpTranslation between languages, including Simplified to Traditional etc, but watch results of out of context translation: au.babelfish.yahoo.com/Unicode converter (Sifu shared this with us, remember?)http://www.pinyin.info/tools/converter/chars2uninumbers.html Also, a great tool to write Chinese: Global Penpower Jr. from Penpower Inc. 46520 Fremont Blvd. Ste 610, Fremont, CA 94538, phone 510 879 660. Runs on XP, Visa. Have fun. Regards, Ah Gin
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Post by Woodson on Dec 30, 2008 13:22:38 GMT -5
Doug and Ahgin, thanks for the links. One site that I've found useful is translate.google.comfor the times when the Chinese character just escapes the mind. Type in the English word or phrase and wait for the translation. It is not perfect but comes in handy.
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Post by Doug 周 on Dec 30, 2008 13:46:35 GMT -5
Dear Ah Gin and Woodson, Have either of you used any family tree genealogy program? Do you have a favorite? Right now, I am recommending the on-line www.dyanastree.com, which is free and has an excellent GEDCOM exporting feature. As soon as I finish my year-end obligations, I will start a new thread on the 0n-line programs. Doug
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Post by Ah Gin on Dec 30, 2008 22:37:49 GMT -5
Doug,
I am focusing at the "content" stage, ie, getting as much as I can of the branches and information relating to each branch. Mostly I am using Excel and the occasional Word. At some stage I will certainly have a closer look at dynastree. With relatives spread over the USA, China, Asia and Australia, something simple to attract the attention of relatives who may not be as keen (crazy is a more polite word) as nuts like us, digging up family history. By the way, in addition to the usual BDM data I am aiming to record some information relating to the health side of the family, so that generations that follow us are aware and thus better prepared to manage these matters. I presume dynastree would have that capability (for recording that is).
Regards, Ah Gin
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Post by kerry on Jan 1, 2009 22:17:46 GMT -5
Oops - this is off the original topic. Had a look at Dynastree's FAQs. - It's a "closed" security model - people can only see the tree if you invite them in. That mean's people you don't know can't "find" you or your ancestors, through Google. (which I find a very productive way to grow the tree)
- Dynastree's web site supports a few languages but not Chinese. That's not to say that you can't enter Chinese characters into the web pages for a name of a person or a place. This sort of language support deals with instructions and labels on fields in the web pages. Still, it does reflect where their interest is. (very Eurocentric I think.)
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Post by Doug 周 on Jan 2, 2009 21:52:08 GMT -5
regarding medical data: Some software programs have fields for medical information. This is assumed to be important for family medical history. The fields are not well defined in any GEDCOM 'standard' and the information may not transfer to other software programs when you import your GEDCOM. Also, the half life of a medical fact is only 7 years and what information was important to record 50 years ago may not be relevant now. Many years ago cranium skull measurements were important. Some programs like Legacy www.legacyfamilytree.com/ have fields for DNA information. We have a new forum for DNA discussion. Dynastree has a free text section for biography and miscellaneous information. That data gets into GEDCOM and as per my discussion on GEDCOM whether it gets imported into another program depends on the programmer. This free text section also recognizes Unicode and my Chinese literate relatives have made their entries in the native language. Doug
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Post by jefferyseow on Jan 6, 2009 10:25:01 GMT -5
I am using the old "ancestry.exe" application to enter my data and generate Gedcoms. The upside is I find it very user friendly especially when it comes to generating "books" in rtf format which I can then send to family members by email. The downside is it is not Chinese friendly --- it won't let me input unicode/ascii so no Chinese characters and the next best thing is Hanyu Pinyin romanised spelling of Chinese names.
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Post by Doug 周 on Jan 28, 2009 17:03:38 GMT -5
Another way to get Chinese characters is with OCR. OCR is an acronym for Optical Character Recognition. It will look at a picture of your Chinese character and offer possible Chinese text (as Unicode). Your scanned image of the Chinese character file needs to be a bitmap (.bmp) file. You identify the character you want to import as Chinese text. From there you choose from 9 possibilities. users.belgacom.net/chardic/cocr2.html . This is Windows OS freeware. It has the problems with hand written characters since penmanship becomes an issue. BTW a Windows OS freeware to scan images or convert them to a bitmap format is Irfanview. www.irfanview.com/
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Post by Henry on Jan 28, 2009 19:15:28 GMT -5
Hi Doug,
Thank you so much for sharing this method of converting a bitmap (.bmp) image file into a typed Chinese character. It is so easy and it really works very well.
Three years ago, I spent $200 USD to buy a OCR pen reader to try and achieve this, however, it only had a success rate of about 60 %. This method is probably has a success rate of over 90%.
Thank you so much for sharing this with everybody.
Henry
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baksha
Member
wongyen@comcast.net
Posts: 105
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Post by baksha on Aug 27, 2011 2:26:15 GMT -5
Hi, I've had some luck getting Chinese characters onto a word document by using: www.nciku.com/ . First, I have calligraphy training, so I'm able to correctly air stroke in the characters on this program using my mouse and some wrist action. The primitive word appears in the box and I visually identify the word from the list that nciku shows. Once you have the desired characters in the space, you may have nciku define and pronounce the word. If it's a place, it will identify it in China. You may also copy and paste the phrase onto a Word document, enlarge the characters and space out the characters. I've also used this program to decipher a scenic & historic tour for a Chinese itinerary that a Chinese speaker had organized. It takes some patience. Google translations don't always make English sense...
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Post by Doug 周 on Aug 27, 2011 6:26:09 GMT -5
Using baksha's post to reiterate my experiences: I have to admit that some calligraphy training is helpful with NCIKUclick and Chinese Input Method Editorclick . NCIKU requires Adobe Flash, which is not available on Ipads, and Chinese Input Method Editor requires Java script enabled. I think iOS devices allow Java scripts. What helps is knowing the stroke order of characters when writing calligraphy. I had to review them in order to increase my success rate to 80%. If I remember correctly, it is top down, left to right, fill in any boxes before you close the box, etc. Even better, I have my wife input the mouse strokes. She remembers her calligraphy better, even though she is illiterate in Chinese. She can get 90% success. Of course, I have already tried COCR2 :Experimental Chinese OCRclickIf the above fails, then I try to get the definition of the word, and input the meanings into a English Chinese dictionary. I then select, copy, and paste the list of close resulting characters into a text editor and enlarge the font. Using image comparison, I try to find the right match. Failing further, I open MGDBclick paste my nearest match from NCIKU or Chinese Input Editor, then break down the character by radicals. I choose the radical most similar. MGDB then presents me with a list of characters that contain this radical. Scrolling down the list, with image comparisons, I choose a character and confirm the choice by translating the character in a dictionary. Sometimes I use the pronunciation option to see if it sounds close to what someone has tried to enunciate. Unfortunately, my family's dialect is very obscure, but pronunciation via the standard Cantonese is better than Mandarin. Another possible step after failure, I send the image to my wife's cousin in Shanghai. This is someone who is keyboard comfortable, and Chinese literate. However, with traditional characters, he has some difficulty. Finally, I post onto the Forum, and they are always helpful and successful. IMHO Doug
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Post by jacquie on Mar 21, 2012 15:03:30 GMT -5
I am a new member, just a few minutes old. I was able to obtain a copy of my father's ancestry record which was kept in each village in China, of the marriages, births and death of each person born in that village, so I was told. It is written in old Chinese character, and I am looking for someone who can translate this 90 pages to English. I do not speak or write Chinese, and not really good with computers, so limited in resources, would appreciate any help. My father was born in Canton which is now Guangzhou, China and name is Chin, or Chen, or Chan.
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Post by lachinatown on Mar 21, 2012 15:39:17 GMT -5
90 pages would be too much for this site here. But if you have your father's page(s), maybe we can help. You have any letters or other writing that can narrow down the names and villages?
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Post by chansomvia on Mar 21, 2012 18:34:22 GMT -5
Hi Jacquie,
There are many experts on this excellent forum who can help on the odd translation but 90 pages is a big task. If the letters can be scanned one by one perhaps try a google translate, it will not translate a picture of the word but maybe if there is a Chinese optical character recognition (OCR) software it would recognise the actual word and translate.
Joe
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