Hi, just wanted to say that I love the new Openoffice and wanted to offer a recommendation or two concerning Japanese input in writer. It is possible that some of these functions are already available and that I simply have not found out how to use them but I have done some researched to make sure before writing this.
1) I believe it would be relatively simple to add a function that automatically fills in the furigana (or ruby) line for selected kanji in the Asian phonetic guide window. As things are now, one must select the kanji, click on format->asian phonetic guide and manually enter the furigana. (Furigana are syllabic characters giving the pronunciation of kanji (ideograms)). In MS word, the furigana is entered in automatically and one can change it if need be. This greatly increases productivity when writing Japanese texts since depending on the literacy of the targeted reader, one sometimes has to add furigana to nearly every kanji. This can be a very long process when done manually. 2) Japanese companies often use a single or a few kanji (usually the name of the company) encased in a circle, a square or a diamond as a company logo. This is somewhat equivalent to the TM (for trademark) we often use in the west. I have not found a way to do this in Writer, it would be a useful function. 3)This is perhaps demanding too much but it would be fantastic to have writer integrated with an online open source English-Japanese Japanese-English diction nay such as that of Jim Breen's of Monash University. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html<http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ejwb/wwwjdic.html> this dictionary now even works on cell phones and has every kanji finding function one could imagine. One could select kanji in a text; right click and select translate through jim breen's dictionnay or something of the sort. The reverse would also work. 4)Add japanese to supported languages using complex text layout : Although the usual text layout for Japanese is from left to right top to bottom, Japanese people traditionally write personal letters vertically and from right to left. This format is also very common in other medias such as small news articles or various announcements. This would be a very useful function to add to Openoffice. Although I am not a programmer, I would be glad to help in any that might be useful in developing these functions. You may contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you for a wonderful product. Pablo Berlanga
