General Information about Japanese Input.
I haven't experienced any problems so far making Japanese documents with Word 2000. Actually, it was shock to me that Word 2000 is much easier to use when I compared it with well-known Japanese word processors. I think that is mainly because I am accustomed to de facto Office tools in the Microsoft Word series.
Then I found out there is a way to put rubi, sometimes called furigana. It is really easy to use and is a smart tool, so you can use as a kanji reader like Jim Breen's WWWJDIC.
Let's see how we can start. I assume you have already installed some kind of Input Method, which I mentioned and demonstrated in Chapter2. If you have not done that yet, please go back and do it.
First of all, let's open Word 2000. Like Fig. [5]
[Fig. 5] Word 2000 and IME selection
Inside of Word, please click anywhere. This is really important. This lets computer know that you are working with Word 2000. Without this you cannot even see the English icon like Fig. [5] if you are using Windows 95 or Windows 98.
After clicking on the icon of EN, you can choose Japanese IME. After that you can see something like this Fig. [6].
[Fig. 6] Japanese IME
If you click on what I marked in Fig. [6], you can learn many tricks and skills from the help file Fig. [7]. However, you don't need to learn all those skills. Here, I will show you a minimal number of skills just to get you started, so when you need more please consult the help file.
[Fig. 7] Word 2000 and IME selection
How to type in Japanese
To input Japanese you can select firagana like Fig. [7]. However, you will find out that there is a short key [ Alt + ~ ], which means while pressing the 'Alt' key push the '~' key (you don't need to use shift). If you do it once, you can enter the Japanese mode, and if you do it again it gives you the English input mode. In short, it toggles.
Let's see how we can do with this. Like Fig. [8], if you type in ROMAJI like number 1, just press the 'Space Bar' then you can get number 2. At this point all you need to do is just press 'ENTER'. You did it~!
[Fig. 8] Japanese Word processing
How to type Katakana.
This is straight forward after you type in Romaji (Don't forget to switch to Japanese mode and press [ Alt + ~ ]) and then just press the 'F7' key, which can be found on the top row of the keyboard.
I made an example for you. Like Fig. [9], after typing in something like sample 1, then press the 'F7' key. That's it, and then you just need to press 'Enter'.
[Fig. 9] Typying Katakana
Please pay attention to the dotted underline. Only the underlined section, can you change to Kanji using the 'Space bar' or can you change to Katakana using the 'F7' key. Don't forget that any kind of conversion can be done only if the text is underlined. If you just start to type in, you can underline automatically. If you have any questions, please refer to the help menu. Fig[7]
