MacKEY Quick Reference

This overview explains, in point form, how to use the features of MacKEY.

Summary
MacKEY is a user-friendly software system for writing, learning and teaching Chinese (Japanese and Korean word processor included). The strength of MacKEY lies in its user-friendly text entry and in its linguistic infrastructure. To write a Chinese document in MacKEY, double-click the MacKEY icon: the MacKEY edit screen appears, with the toolbar beside it. Choose the entry mode from the toolbar (e.g., "S" for Simplified Chinese, "T" for Traditional Chinese etc.). You can now enter Chinese text in Pinyin Romanization and convert it into Chinese characters by pressing F11. It allows you to generate CJK text, or import CJK text from outside sources (Internet etc.). MacKEY works well with other Mac applications, but working in standalone mode lets writers, authors, teachers and learners take advantage of the full range of instructional technology features of MacKEY. For example, when Chinese character text is copied/pasted into the MacKEY edit screen, the word boundaries are automatically reconstructed, laying the basis for analysis and comprehension of the text through the C/E dictionary (with Tool Tip lookup), the "Pinyin With Hanzi" feature, Text To Speech, etc. Advanced features like the Timed Reading module (TR) automatically generate, from static text, dynamic interactive Chinese multimedia lessons running directly within MacKEY. Automatic Chinese/English glossary building for a given text, and the ability to add (and hide) annotations in electronic CJK documents or lessons facilitate the authoring of instructional materials, in both printed or electronic form.

The MacKEY features in point form

• Writing Chinese (Japanese, Korean) text as easily as Roman text: MacKEY in stand-alone work mode
Double-click the MacKEY icon: the edit screen appears, with the MacKEY toolbar beside it. Hovering the mouse pointer over the buttons of the toolbar for 1-2 seconds will display a summary of the button.
By default, the text entry mode is set to "S" (Simplified Chinese characters). You can now enter Chinese text in Pinyin, and convert it to Chinese characters through F11, or by typing a punctuation mark. This stand-alone work mode is recommended for writing Chinese text which does not require some of the more complex formatting options of Mac applications such as AppleWorks, MS Word, etc.
You can finalize your CJK text on the MacKEY edit screen and print it out through MacKEY's own print engine. For a complete detailed overview of the MacKEY word processing features, launch the file "Chinese Input" from the Help menu.
A major advantage of working in McKEY stand-alone mode is that all the advanced linguistic and didactic functions of MacKEY are available to you, such as the Chinese/English dictionary, Hanzi with Pinyin, Pinyin with tone marks, Annotations in English and Chinese, Text To Speech, Timed Reading of Chinese text in electronic format - to name only the main features.
• Working with MacKEY in connection with other Macintosh applications (AppleWorks, MS Word, etc.)
You can transfer CJK text from a MacKEY document into documents of other Mac applications through standard Cut/Copy & Paste. MacKEY provides several different "filters" for your clipboard copy operations. Whenever your formatting requires that your document is written in an application like AppleWorks, MS Word, PowerPoint etc., first write the text in MacKEY and then copy & paste it into the document of the other Macintosh program.
Access the clipboard settings through "Clipboard Format" (on the Edit menu). Use the default clipboard setting WorldScript for most of your word processing Cut/Copy & Paste work (if the WorldScript Cut/Copy & Paste does not work, try the Unicode and RTF clipboard settings). After the Chinese character text has been pasted into the document of the other Mac application, it can be formatted just like other Roman text.
Example: using MacKEY for creating tables in AppleWorks / MS Word
1. Write the whole table in MacKEY, separating the contents of each (future) cell with one Tab stop. If your cell contents is wider than the MacKEY default tab of 1", change the Tab stops (from the MacKEY format menu). Do not use two or more tab stops to separate the table items: imagine that each tab stop you set in MacKEY will later become the vertical line of the table cell.
2. Having finalized the table (still without lines) in MacKEY, "select all", then "copy".
3. "Paste" the table into your AppleWorks / MS Word document. Important: If the vertical alignment of your tabs is off, do not correct it at this point, it will automatically be corrected in the next step.
4. Select (=highlight) the entire table contents, and from the "Table" menu of Appleworks / MS Word select "Convert (Text) to Table". Clicking OK will now generate the Appleworks / MS Word table with your MacKEY contents. The CJK characters in the table can be formatted just like any other Roman text.
For changing the CJK contents of table cells, write the replacement items in MacKey and copy & paste them into the AppleWorks / MS Word table one by one.
• Combining Chinese Traditional and Simplified text and Pinyin with tone marks in the same file, and accurately converting text between the different modes
a. PINYIN (WITH OR WITHOUT TONE MARKS) TO CHINESE CHARACTERS. Select (=highlight) the Pinyin text and click on the "S" button on the KEY toolbar to convert it to Simplified characters, or click on the "T" button to convert it to Traditional characters. b. SIMPLIFIED TO TRADITIONAL. You can convert Simplified Chinese character text into Traditional characters by selecting (=highlighting) it and clicking the "T" button ("Traditional") on the MacKEY toolbar.
c. TRADITIONAL TO SIMPLIFIED. Vice versa, you can convert Traditional Chinese character text into Simplified characters by selecting (=highlighting) it and clicking the "S" button ("Simplified") on the MacKEY toolbar.
d. CHINESE CHARACTERS TO PINYIN WITH TONE MARKS. To convert Chinese character text into its Pinyin-with-tone-marks equivalent, with automatic setting of the tone marks, select (=highlight) the Chinese character text and click on the "E" button ("English") on the KEY toolbar.
• Editing Pinyin attributes: tone marks, spacing and capitalization
The MacKEY toolbar offers custom tools for editing your Pinyin text and "Hanzi with Pinyin" text, regarding tone marks, spacing and capitalization.
To apply or change a tone mark in your Pinyin text (or "Hanzi with Pinyin" text), place the cursor anywhere in the Pinyin syllable and click on one of the red numerals 1-5 on the MacKEY toolbar. The specified tone mark appears on the vowel.
If you want to eliminate an undesirable space in your "Hanzi with Pinyin" text, do not use the Delete or Backspace key, but the "bridge" sign, which can be used to toggle spaces off and on.
To capitalize a Pinyin syllable in your "Hanzi with Pinyin" text, click on the capital "A" on the MacKEY toolbar. This is also a toggle key.
• "Hanzi with Pinyin" mode: add a line of Pinyin with tone marks (or Zhuyin Fuhao) below or above existing Chinese character text; and/or add a line with the Simplified character equivalent to an existing line of Traditional character text (& vice versa), all properly aligned
This is an extremely useful feature for anyone who needs to write Chinese text in both Pinyin with tone marks and Chinese characters at the same time, in two (or three) parallel lines, with the words vertically aligned: a time-saving tool for authors of teaching materials, text books etc.
Select the work mode "Hanzi with Pinyin" from the MacKEY "Format" menu. Writing in this mode for the first time will seem to you like magic: you enter your Chinese text in Pinyin (without tone marks), and it converts automatically to Pinyin (with tone marks), with the Chinese characters aligned underneath. In your Chinese learning/teaching materials you may even require three forms of the same text: check "two lines of Hanzi" on the Hanzi-with-Pinyin panel (note that the "Hanzi with Pinyin" mode is available only in MacKEY stand-alone operation.)
If you need the vertical Pinyin/Hanzi alignment to be perfect (like for the printing of a text book), you can use the Horizontal Layout Adjustment tool. Due to the spacing discrepancies between Pinyin syllables (they vary in length between 1 and 6 Roman characters) and the Chinese characters, the alignment might be off in certain cases. To adjust the alignment, place the cursor left of the Hanzi you want to move and select "Adjust Horizontal Layout" from the Format menu. To move the Chinese character to the right, enter a positive value between 10 and 60 (100 is one character width). To move the character to the left, enter a negative value. Try different values until the alignment is perfect.
• Write CJK email with any WorldScript-enabled email program
Open MacKEY and choose the language of your email message by clicking on the respective toolbar button ("T" for Traditional Chinese, "S" for Simplified Chinese, "J" for Japanese, "K" for Korean. Verify on the MacKEY "Edit" menu that the clipboard is set to "WorldScript". Now write your Chinese (Japanese, Korean) email message in MacKEY. Then copy/paste the text from MacKEY directly into the "compose email" screen of your email program, where it will be correctly displayed in CJK characters, and send your email
• Using the MacKEY features for analyzing and processing Chinese text from outside sources (email, Internet, other Chinese software etc.), and creating interactive multimedia lessons using authentic Chinese text, through MacKEY's Timed Reading module
Example: Chinese text from the Internet. Let's assume you want to capture and analyze text from a Chinese web page, and maybe also use it as teaching material. Start by copying & pasting a Chinese character text of your choice from the web (or other outside sources) into the MacKEY edit screen:
* Select (=highlight) the Chinese web text displayed in your browser, and "copy" it;
* Paste it into the MacKEY screen;
* Select (=highlight) the text, and from the MacKEY Format menu choose "Hanzi with Pinyin". This will display a second line with the Pinyin-with-tone-marks equivalent of your text. You can see from the word segmentation of the Pinyin transcription that MacKEY has automatically reconstructed the word boundaries when the text was copied & pasted into MacKEY;
* Use "Text To Speech" to listen to highlighted passages;
* Make sure that "Dictionary tool tip" is checked (on the MacKEY View menu), then hover your mouse pointer on the Chinese words of the text to display their Pinyin pronunciation and English meaning;
* Check "Read tool tip with Text To Speech" (on the MacKEY View menu) to hear the Mandarin Chinese reading of the tool tip item;
* To study your Chinese text in form of a dynamic, interactive multimedia lesson, press the "TR" (Timed Reading) button on the MacKEY toolbar, specify the various "checks" you want to include in the lesson, and click OK to run the Timed Reading lesson;
* If you are preparing the lesson for study, you may want to use the Annotation feature to annotate certain words, grammatical particles, multi-part structures etc.; when your students run the lesson, they can display the hidden annotations with the "annotation tool tip".
• Automatic glossary building for a Chinese character text
To create a glossary for a given Chinese text
a. Copy/paste the text beneath itself, so you have it on the screen twice;
b. Use "Return" to chop up the second copy of the text into words, one at the beginning of each line;
c. Clicking "Convert To Glossary" (Format menu) automatically provides the pronunciation and the English meaning for each term, arranged in columns.
• Creating annotations for a Chinese word or passage, even with split grammatical structures
You can make an annotation to a word or text passage ("object"), hide the annotation and automatically retrieve it through the annotation tool tip feature. Annotation objects are marked through the item "Create Annotation" with a colour background (10 pre-set colours available) or underline. The colour background/underline feature allows you to mark the annotations according to different categories you may want to create, such as grammatical, vocabulary-related, associated meanings or any other category you have in mind.
• Reconstruct the word boundaries of Chinese character text
If your Chinese character text was created in MacKEY through non-standard Pinyin (e.g., monosyllabic Pinyin entry that was corrected with homonym lookup), this text does not have the necessary information for the correct Pinyin word boundaries. You can create the correct infrastructure by selecting (=highlighting) the text and clicking the item "Linguistic Reconstruction" on the KEY "Language" menu.
(For text that is copied & pasted into the MacKEY edit screen it is not necessary to activate linguistic reconstruction - it is applied automatically to any Chinese text pasted into the MacKEY document.)
• Write Cantonese, with both the Yale and Jyutping transcriptions.
In this mode, you can enter Cantonese in the Yale or Jyutping Romanization. You can also use the Hanzi with Pinyin mode (on the Format menu) to automatically generate the Cantonese Yale or Jyutping Romanization for any Hanzi text. When text is highlighted, selecting this item will convert your Chinese character text to Cantonese Yale or Jyutping Romanized text.
• Export to HTML
Choose this item on the "File" menu to automatically publish your Chinese web page in HTML 4.0 Unicode, UTF-8, Big Five or GB format)
• Full-featured printing in 12 styles of Chinese True-Type fonts
The Chinese fonts used by MacKEY:
The KEY GB and KEY B5 Unicode fonts. When installing KEY, the KEY GB Mingti and KEY B5 Mingti Unicode fonts are installed as the default fonts. These fonts allow you to work in both Traditional and Simplified Chinese text. A total of 11 additonal font styles is available for installation. Install 12 different font styles and print your text in any combination of these different fonts.
• Search the internal Chinese/English dictionary of over 250,000 Chinese terms on Pinyin, Chinese characters, or English
After installing MacKEY and the Chinese/English dictionary, you can use the dictionary in two different ways:
a. Through the dictionary tool tip. This feature is "on" by default after installation of MacKEY, and is controlled by a checkmark on the "View" menu. Pointing at Chinese text in KEY displays a tool tip window with the Pinyin pronunciation of the words, with the background of the dictionary item blinking yellow. The word boundaries of the lookup can be shifted with the left and right arrow keys. b. Clicking on the "Dic" button on the toolbar displays the dictionary window with three blank lines. A search item can be entered in either English, Pinyin or Chinese characters. If the search item is selected (=highlighted) before clicking the "Dic" button, it is carried along into the respective line of the dictionary window.