Chapter 2
Reading Japanese texts
Dokusha can read Japanese texts which have been converted to the
standard DOC format. You can use any of the available third-party
text converters to do this; a good one for Windows users is MakeDocW,
available here.
Japanese texts files come in several different formats: JIS,
Shift-JIS, Unicode, EUC, etc. Dokusha only understands the EUC
format, so if you have a file in another format you must first convert
it to EUC. A good solution for Windows is to download the freeware
Japanese word processor JWPce (available here).
With JWPce you can convert Japanese text to EUC format with the "Save
As..." menu option.
After converting your file to EUC format, run your DOC converter to
convert it to a .PRC or .PDB database, which you can then install on
your Palm device using the Palm Install Tool or other software.
Important: You must use the correct settings for your DOC
converter or you will not be able to view the text correctly on the
Palm device. You must set the DOC converter as follows (these options
are for MakeDocW; adapt them if you use another DOC converter):
- Turn off Compression (Conversion tab)
- CR/LF Removal: Remove CR Characters (Line Breaks tab)
- CR/LF Translation: None (Line Breaks tab)
- Optional: Turn off Ignore Single Line-Breaks (Advanced tab)
The most important thing to remember is to turn off
compression. Dokusha cannot read compressed DOC files.
If you have JWPce or another Japanese text editor that can write EUC
files, you can use Dokusha to read Japanese web pages by loading the
web page in Internet Explorer or another Japanese-compatible web
browser, copying the relevant text, pasting it into the text editor
window, then saving and converting the resulting file.
Once you have installed some Japanese text files on your Palm device
you can open them using the Tools/Open... menu option.
Navigating around Japanese texts
The Japanese text reader is very simple to use. There is a row of
four buttons at the bottom of the main reader screen:
- Prev - Backs up to the previous page or line (page or line
mode can be set in the Preferences).
- Next - Scrolls to the next page or line.
- Find - Initiates a dictionary search. By default, this
searches for the selected text in the document you are reading,
but you can change this in the Preferences.
- Kanji - Gets Kanji details for the currently selected
character. You must have exactly one character selected to use
this option.
Note that instead of tapping the Find button, you can write a Space
stroke (left-to-right stroke) in the Graffiti area. Writing a Space
stroke always searches for the selected text in the document,
regardless of the Preferences setting.
Selecting Text
Selecting text in the reader screen is a bit different from other text
readers. Instead of dragging the stylus over the section of text you
want to select, simply tap the first character of the text you want to
select. This selects a single character. Repeated taps on the same
first character successively extend the selection by one character.
To cancel your selection, either tap on the title bar, or write a
Backspace (right-to-left) Graffiti stroke.
This method of selection helps protect the Palm screen, which is
easily damaged by repeated selection-dragging.
Back to Contents