FOUR-KEY EASYTONE FONTS


There are two fonts:

These fonts are for use in Windows (3.1, 95, or 98, English or Chinese versions) and the Mac OS, primarily for the purpose of writing romanized Mandarin Chinese in the pinyin, Yale or other spelling systems that use the standard four tone marks. (They can also be used for Cantonese transcribed in the Yale romanization.) The fonts work in Write, MS Word and other applications that use scaleable TrueType fonts. Such features as italics and bolding are effected in the usual way.

Installation

Windows: To install EasyTone fonts into your Windows system, follow instructions in your Windows manual, or, for Windows 95 and 98, simply copy the font files into your system's "fonts" folder. (If you don't know where your fonts folder is, you should be able to find it by using the "find" function from your "start" menu.)

Note: If you are using MS Word and it is set for automatic "correction" of an isolated lower case "i" to capital "I," delete that item from the AutoCorrect window on the Tools menu; otherwise a tone-marked syllable-final "i" might be interpreted as isolated and automatically changed to "I."

Macintosh: To install the EasyTone fonts into your Macintosh system, simply drag the fonts into your System Folder. The fonts will be placed in the "Fonts" folder. Applications which are open as you install the fonts must be closed and run again before the fonts become available but there is no need to restart.

How to Use EasyTone Fonts

Simply strike a tone symbol key, followed by the letter over which you want the tone mark to appear. The non-spacing tone symbol appears on screen first, then the letter appears beneath it. Tone keys are: < for 1st tone, > for 2nd, [ for 3rd, ] for 4th. Umlaut-u is on the ` key. The four key positions < > [ ] are reprogrammed to carry the non-spacing tone marks, and ` is replaced by umlaut-u. Square brackets [ ] have been moved to the braces { } keys; so they are still available in these fonts. (Thus the symbols { } and ` are not available in EasyTone fonts, though they can be inserted into your text from ordinary Times Roman or Courier fonts.)

EasyTone fonts are prepared by James E. Dew. In addition to being downloadable as freeware from this website, they are available on disk from Cheng & Tsui Co., 25 West St., Boston MA 02111, Tel. 617-426-6074, Email: orders@cheng-tsui.com. The disk version includes a SortKit, which contains instructions and macros for converting tone-marked text to tone-number text for alphabetic sorting. Questions and suggestions may be addressed to James E. Dew at Wenke Lou, Rm. 502, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Email: james.dew@bj.col.com.cn.


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