HOWTO view Chinese on the web

First and for all, make sure you have Chinese fonts installed, otherwise you wont be able to view Chinese.


1. Adjust the encoding of your browser
   
   • The three most common encodings for Chinese websites are Big5, GB2312 and UTF-8. (More information can be found in the encoding section). If you you want to view a Chinese webpage and the characters aren't displayed the way they should be, then try changing the encoding of the webpage. For Traditional characters the Big5 encoding is the most frequent, for Simplified characters the GB encoding is the most frequent. See below for more detailed instructions.
   
   
   
   • Internet Explorer (based on Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5.5)
     View > Coding > > more > (or right click > Coding > more > )
     You can choose from : Chinese (Traditional)(Big5), Chinese (Simplified) (GB2312) and Chinese (Simplified)(HZ). Unicode (UTF-8)
     The best option for encoding is 'Automatic selection' this option you can enable by going to 'Coding' in the menu 'View'.
     If you don't have Chinese language support installed read my howto install Chinese language support in Windows-page.
   
   
   
   • Konqueror (based on Konqueror 3.1.2)
     View > Set Encoding >
     Chinese Simplified (GB18030), Chinese Simplified (GB2312), Chinese Simplified (GBK), Chinese Traditional (Big5), Unicode (utf8)
   
   
   
   • Mozilla (based on Mozilla 1.4b)
     View> > Character Coding > More > East Asian > .
     For Chinese you can choose out of : Chinese Simplified (GB2312), Chinese Simplified (GBK), Chinese Simplified (GB18030), Chinese Simplified (HZ), Chinese Simplified (ISO-2022-CN), Chinese Traditional (Big5), Chinese Traditional (Big5-HKSCS), Chinese Traditional (EUC-TW)
   
   
   
   • Netscape (based on Netscape Communicator 4.7, for Netscape 6 and higher see Mozilla)
     View > Character Coding >
     You can choose frm : Traditional Chinese (Big5)
     You can enable the autodetect function als followed :
     View > Character Coding > Auto-Detect > Chinese
     If you still get little squares then you have to set your font display right. Go to the menu 'Edit' and choose at the bottom for 'Preferences'. In the left column click on 'Fonts' in the submenu 'Appearance' and then in the right column choose in 'Fonts for' for 'Traditional Chinese'. Then you select for each item a font that can handle Chinese characters i.e. MS Song or MingLiu. If you haven't got any fonts that can display Chinese characters, download them here. If this didn't bring any help, do the same but instead of 'Traditional Chinese (Big5)' for 'Chinese Simplified (GB2312)'.
   
   
   
   • Opera (based on Opera 7.11)
     View > Encoding > Chinese >
     You can choose from : Automatic Detection, Big5 (Traditional), Big5-HKSCS (Traditional), EUC-TW (Traditional), GBK/GB2312 (Simplified), GB18030 (Simplified), HZ-GB2312 (Simplified), ISO-2022-CN.
   
   
   
   
2. Using software


• Install a CJK-enabler program like Richwin, Twinbridge or NJ Star. If you want to view of type Chinese open the program. If the characters you wished to see didn't display correctly, try to change the encoding of the program.
  Other vendors are : Unionway, Dr.Eye, Wenlin
• Install the Microsoft IME (Input Method Editor), this can be done using Microsoft WindowsUpdate or by downloading the IME from this page at Microsoft.


3. Online tools
There are some online tools available (more to come, some day ...)