Pinyin Dictionary 2.1.0 Adds Word Segmentation on Leopard

Ideographer has released Pinyin Dictionary 2.1.0, an update to its free Chinese Romanization utility for Mac OS X. Version 2.1.0 adds punctuation marks and line breaks that can be preserved, as well as a resizable main window and text input field. Word segmentation has also been included, but only Leopard users can benefit from this update. More on Pinyin Dictionary 2.1.0 below.

 

To use Pinyin Dictionary, just input one or more Chinese characters and press Enter / Return to get their pinyin forms. This version accepts Traditional and Simplified characters. To enter a new line, press Shift + Return. In the Preferences window, you can choose which pinyin systems you'd like to use. If you prefer tones to be indicated by numbers rather than by diacritical marks, select the "Use numbers to represent tones" checkbox. You can also change the settings for multiple readings and word segmentation.

 

Pinyin Dictionary transliterates Chinese characters (hanzi) to Romanized forms. Five pinyin systems are currently supported. Those include Hanyu Pinyin, Zhuyin (Bopomofo), MPS 2, Wade-Giles, and Tongyong Pinyin.

 

Here is the full list of additions in version 2.1.0, according to Ideographer:

 

- Punctuation marks and line breaks can be preserved.

- Resizable main window and text input field.

- Word segmentation. (Mac OS X 10.5 is required)

- Option to disable tone marks.

- Option to show only one reading for each character.

- Fixed errors in Wade-Giles and Tongyong Pinyin.

 

Pinyin Dictionary is a Universal Binary that requires a Mac packing either a PowerPC or Intel processor. At least Mac OS X version 10.2 is needed to use the translation utility. To download Pinyin Dictionary 2.1.0, click here.

 

Ideographer is also known for having developed other useful apps for Mac, including KaraTunes, Unihan Variant Dictionary and Chinese Rewriter.

 

A Pinyin Font Converter is also available from the folks at The Fool's Workshop. The Pinyin Font Converter converts texts between some of the most popular Pinyin fonts available for Windows and Mac. In order to input Romanized Chinese in Pinyin (using the 4 tones of Mandarin Chinese), special fonts are used to mark vowels with tones. Some of them can be found on the Internet, according to the makers.