Chinese in OS X 10.1 and 10.2

OS X 10.1

The OS X 10.0 [Cheetah] CD released in March 2001 and the OS X 10.1 [Puma] CDs released in September 2001 did not contain Chinese. Instead, OS X searched your OS 9 System/Fonts folder at startup and made all the fonts in it available in OS X. As a result, if you had the Chinese language kits installed in OS 9, you were able to read Chinese in documents and on the Internet, but you couldn't input Chinese directly.

In late October 2001, Apple started shipping new CDs with Chinese on them. However, the part number on the outside of the package did not change, only the number on the CD inside, which began with "2Z." Earlier CDs had numbers on them that began with "1Z." The free 2Z upgrade CD could be used to update the 1Z CDs.

In early 2002, Apple made support for Chinese and the other so-called "Tier 2" languages available as downloads, called "Language Support Updates." They will appear in Software Update after you install OS X 10.1.5. They will not appear if you have already installed Chinese language support using a CD. They are only intended to update the language support installed from the original 1Z CDs. If you have OS X 10.1 Chinese language support from a CD, you don't need the Language Support Updates. They don't add anything to the Chinese language support you can install from a CD.

The Chinese fonts that are installed in OS X 10.1 are the same group that come with OS 9. For Traditional Chinese (Big Five), you have Taipei, Apple LiGothic Medium, Apple LiSung Light, and BiauKai. For Simplified Chinese (GB 2312), you have Beijing, Song, Hei, Kai, and Fang Song.

In OS X 10.1, activate the Chinese input methods in the "Keyboard Menu" tab in System Preferences... International. They appear right away in the Keyboard menu, which is next to the Help menu. They are the same as the OS 9 input methods.

OS X 10.2

Released in August 2002, all copies of OS X 10.2 [Jaguar] include Chinese support. The main improvement over OS X 10.1 is the introduction of GB 18030 support, including the addition of five GB 18030 fonts [华文黑体 ST Hei, 华文细黑 ST Hei Light, 华文楷体 ST Kai, 华文宋体 ST Song, and 华文仿宋 ST FangSong] and access to the full GB 18030 character set by radical in the Simplified Chinese section of the new "Character Palette."

There are also two new input methods, but neither is terribly useful (it is easier to use the Character Palette to input characters not in GB 2312 and/or Big Five):

  • AllGB18030-PinYinPlugin input method plug-in
    • Provides single-character Pinyin + tone input for the entire GB 18030 character set. In the /Applications/Utilities/Asia Text Extras/Plugin_Text_Sample folder. To install it, place the .dat file into the "ChineseInputMethodPlug-in" folder, which is located in your Home ~/Library folder. You can also create a /Library/ChineseInputMethodPlug-in folder, so all users will have access. Then logout and login to make it appear in the Input menu.
  • GB18030-2000 input mode
    • Type the GB 18030 hexadecimal code and press return or enter.

In OS X 10.2, use the "Input Menu" tab in System Preferences... International to activate the Chinese input methods and the Character Palette. They appear right away in the Input menu, which appears just to the right of the Help menu. Apart from the enhancements noted above, the input methods are the same as in OS 9.

Utilities

The Chinese utilities that are installed with OS X 10.1 and 10.2 are stored in the /Applications/Utilities/Asia Text Extras folder. They are the same as the OS 9 utilities.

File Name Encoding Repair

OS 8 and OS 9 use Apple's WorldScript encodings to enter and display file names. OS X uses Unicode to enter and display file names. OS 9 converts WorldScript file names to Unicode for use on OS X, but when the encoding differs from the system default in OS 9 (for example, a Chinese file name on an English system) the conversion to Unicode can be incorrect. This utility corrects many common cases of incorrect conversion. See: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL355

Applications

Microsoft Office X

WorldScript-savvy. Office X is an edition of Office 2001 for OS X 10.1 and 10.2. In order to edit Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) text in Word X, you must enable it using the Microsoft Language Register utility that is included in the "Value Pack" on the Office X CD. Drag the Word application icon onto the utility's icon and then choose Japanese from the pop-up menu that appears. If you don't do this, the cursor will be out of sync with the text on the screen when you try to edit CJK text.

Like Excel 2001, Excel X does not display Chinese text properly. For more troubleshooting information, see the discussion of Office 2001.