INSTRUCTIONS FOR NJSTAR

 

1.  Use any of the PC computers in PC Wing of the language lab (BA419)

2.  To get a character/multi-character word, type in the pinyin and then press the space bar.   In cases of a multi-character compound, do not leave spaces between syllables.  If the word you are trying to get is a compound, then try to get it as a compound instead of single characters, as you will have fewer homonyms to choose from.

3.  If there are more than one character that are pronounced the same way, there will be a list on the screen, you can use either the mouse or the number keys to select the character you want.  When there are more than one screenfuls of homophonous characters, there will be arrows leading to previous screens or following screens.

4.  You can toggle between simplified and traditional characters by making the choice under the Help menu.  You can even combine two different styles in the same document by highlighting your selection and choosing the style you want in the small window at top-left corner of the screen.

5.  Choose print to print out your work.  If there is pinyin, you have to change the print setup.  Go to: print setup/properties/font and choose the second option: downloadable truetype bitmapt soft font.

6.  If you want to save, use Save As and always save on a floppy disk or on a zip disk.

 

                   Important Functions of the Njstar Chinese Word Processor

 

                                                         (Using the Menu Bar on Top)

 

File                                     Input                                                Tools                                               

 

New                                   online pinyin                                    Enable Dictionary Popup2

Dictionary3         

Open                                  Ascii (English)                                  Convert Hanzi to Pinyin4 

Save                                    Radicals1                                           Word Annotation5

Save as                               Symbols

Print                                  

Exit                                    

 

  1. Radical input: If you don’t know how a character is pronounced, obviously you can’t use pinyin.  But if you know how it looks, you can use this way to get the character.  You first decide what the radical is for that character and then choose the radical from a screenful of radicals by clicking on it.  And then you will be presented with a list of characters having the same radical.  Choose your character by clicking at it.
  2. Enable Dictionary Popup: This feature allows you to get the pinyin and meanings instantly when you put a cursor over a character or a word.
  3. Dictionary: Select the character/word and Dictionary lists all combinations of the character/word and meanings.
  1. Convert Hanzi to Pinyin: You first select the text you want to convert into pinyin by highlighting it and then choose the Convert function.  You can specify where you want the pinyin be in relation to the character.  You can also choose not to have characters at all.  Also, the converted text will have a new file name.  
  2. Word Annotation: This will provide a line by line annotation including pinyin and English glosses.

 

Download information

 

A demo-version, which does not have all the nice fonts and the full dictionary, can be downloaded from: www.njstar.com.au.