Kit: Windows 7 PDF, EPWING/dictionary programs?

[Chris Moore]

Hi there,

I've been a mac user for the last ten years or so, and with Office
2010 and the more stable and secure (than previous windows releases)
windows 7, plus the fact that all my data is cloud-based and can be
accessed equally easily anywhere anyway, I'm switching back to windows
for my work computer. I've done some poking around for software that
can fill certain needs with a minimum of fuss but still have a couple
gaps that maybe someone here can help me fill in.

Specifically, I'm still looking for alternatives for:

Adobe Acrobat Standard (I want to view PDFs, print to PDFs attaching a
password, and annotate--with as little overhead as possible). I am
open to using the brand name software if alternatives aren't up to
snuff, but if there's a gem in this space that someone is aware of it
would make my day. (On the mac I use Skim to view pdfs. Oh so fast and
smooth!)

A dictionary app for my kenkyusha epwing and EIJIRO files that also
works with user dictionaries, and can import CSV or tab separated
glossaries from larger clients. It would be nice if it searches
automatically when I copy a term to the clipboard or something
similarly clever. A kanji research interface also welcomed. (On the
mac I use JEDict which does all of these wonderfully... something like
this would be great) [As an aside, the websites for software in this
space don't seem to have much in the way of screenshots, and many of
them appear to have not been updated recently… this makes me a little
leery of trying out anything I find there]

It'd also be really nice if they have fairly minimalistic UIs so as
not to damage my poor mac-fan eyes too badly. ;-)

Thanks

Chris Moore

[Nora Stevens Heath]

Chris Moore wrote:

> Adobe Acrobat Standard (I want to view PDFs, print to PDFs attaching a
> password, and annotate--with as little overhead as possible). I am
> open to using the brand name software if alternatives aren't up to
> snuff, but if there's a gem in this space that someone is aware of it
> would make my day. (On the mac I use Skim to view pdfs. Oh so fast and
> smooth!)

I moved to Bullzip when I had to wipe and reinstall my hard drive and
realized I was missing my Acrobat CD.

http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

It's free, fast, and the PDFs it produces are a lot smaller than the
ones created in similar programs I'd sampled. I'm not sure if you can
do annotations, though.

If you find your work environment is becoming increasingly less tied to
your office desk, you may want to consider Portable Apps, a suite of
tiny applications that run off a USB thumb drive. It includes a
lightweight PDF viewer.

http://portableapps.com/

I found it invaluable when I bought my netbook, which lacks the disk
space for most useful programs. (It's more for travel and not for
work--and thank God, because it's not great to type on--but sometimes
you just have to open an Office file when you're on the road.)

Hope that helps--
Nora

--
Nora Stevens Heath <no...@fumizuki.com>
J-E translations: http://www.fumizuki.com/

[Jeff Sawyer]

I can't comment on the dictionary, however I use FoxIT reader as an
extremely lightweight alternative to that bloated Adobe Acrobat reader.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

Its free, however there is a tiny advert in the top right corner -- yet it
is no way intrusive. It should do all you require.

Jeff.

Hi there,

screenshots, and many of them appear to have not been updated recently. this

makes me a little leery of trying out anything I find there]

It'd also be really nice if they have fairly minimalistic UIs so as not to
damage my poor mac-fan eyes too badly. ;-)

Thanks

Chris Moore

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[Chris Moore]

Thank you both. I tried FoxIt and it works like a charm for annotations as well.

If worst comes to worse, I think both Kenkyusha and EIJIRO have
software for their databases on the disks they came on.

Chris Moore

[Carl Freire]

Hi Chris,

Let's break down the dictionary question into a few pieces.

On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Chris Moore wrote:
> A dictionary app for my kenkyusha epwing and EIJIRO files that also

I'm quite happy with the freeware EBWin.

<http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/EBPocket.html#download_win>

> works with user dictionaries, and can import CSV or tab separated
> glossaries from larger clients.

I've never checked to see if you can do this, though I do see there is a "User Dic" option so perhaps if you meander through the help files you can find something.

> It would be nice if it searches
> automatically when I copy a term to the clipboard or something
> similarly clever.

This it does; there is a setting on one of the menus to turn this on and off. (The latest version of JEDict seems to have developed a weird quirk in this regard--it still recognizes the clipboard term but has been exhibiting some odd behavior in deciding when the search window should be active.)

> A kanji research interface also welcomed. (On the
> mac I use JEDict which does all of these wonderfully... something like
> this would be great)

The Holy Grail! I've been dying for something that would work like that on Windows. The best I've been able to do is use the kanji research functions available with an ancient freeware word processor called JWPce:

<http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html>

Of course, since you're relying on the cloud for a lot of work, you can also rely on the web for this, too:

<http://jisho.org/>

But I love JEDict for this. Very, very convenient to be able to access all my dictionaries in different ways through a combined interface.

>
> It'd also be really nice if they have fairly minimalistic UIs so as
> not to damage my poor mac-fan eyes too badly. ;-)

The EBWin interface is pretty user friendly. The one quirk you'll run into when installing dictionaries is that the interface does not make them available immediately after you've installed them. Trust your clicking; you simply have to shut down the application after you've installed all your dictionaries and then restart it. The dictionaries will be there.

Cheers,
Carl

--------------------

Carl Freire
Tokyo, Japan
carl_p_freire at ybb-dot-ne-dot-jp

[David J. Littleboy]

From: "Carl Freire" <carl_p...@ybb.ne.jp>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Chris Moore wrote:
> A dictionary app for my kenkyusha epwing and EIJIRO files that also

I'm quite happy with the freeware EBWin.

<http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/EBPocket.html#download_win>

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Are you running Win with Japanese as the default language for non-Unicode
apps?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

[Chris Moore]

Ah-hah. EBWin. I've used their iPhone app for the Kenkyusha epwing
files. That should do nicely.

Re:Kanji research: It would be nice for it to be integrated like
JEDict, but actually the same data is on the monash university website
and it has an online interface that works.

Chris Moore

[S Zaveloff]

On 6/16/10 9:30 PM, Chris Moore wrote:
> Thank you both. I tried FoxIt and it works like a charm for annotations as well.
>
> If worst comes to worse, I think both Kenkyusha and EIJIRO have
> software for their databases on the disks they came on.
>

I don't know how it works on Windows 7, but I used Jamming in XP and
Vista. It handles EPWING based dictionaries and some other formats
and can convert some text based ones so they can be used. I was never
able to get it to work with the Edict dictionaries. This is one of the
many reasons I switched to the Mac. I have never found anything for
Windows that works as well as JEDict.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven H. Zaveloff gua...@gmail.com
P.O. Box 200203 Tel: (512)219-7142
Austin, Texas 78720-0203 Fax: (512)233-2770
http://members.capmac.org/~stevenzaveloff/

Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
-Diamond Sutra

[Chris Moore]

If that question was for me, then I'm pretty sure that that is the
case. The machine will arrive soon, but I ordered it from Levono's
online store for Japan and I'm pretty sure it will be coming with the
Japanese version of the OS installed.

Chris Moore

[Carl Freire]

On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:43 AM, David J. Littleboy wrote:
> I'm quite happy with the freeware EBWin.
>
> <http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/EBPocket.html#download_win>
>
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Are you running Win with Japanese as the default language for non-Unicode apps?

No, I have mine set for English. There's an English interface plugin packed in with the EBWin files. Fortunately I'm not using an old Japanese apps that cause my Windows computer to choke on menus and displays. When I leave it set for Japanese as the default, I sometimes get the oppposite problem: an installer or a program that includes the option of a Japanese interface decides on its own that I should get the Japanese interface instead of an English one, which is just annoying.

[David J. Littleboy]

From: "Carl Freire" <carl_p...@ybb.ne.jp>

On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:43 AM, David J. Littleboy wrote:
> I'm quite happy with the freeware EBWin.
>
> <http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/EBPocket.html#download_win>
>
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Are you running Win with Japanese as the default language for non-Unicode
> apps?

No, I have mine set for English. There's an English interface plugin packed
in with the EBWin files.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Cool! I've been hoping for something that works in this mode. The last time
I tried, I didn't succeed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Fortunately I'm not using an old Japanese apps that cause my Windows
computer to choke on menus and displays. When I leave it set for Japanese
as the default, I sometimes get the oppposite problem: an installer or a
program that includes the option of a Japanese interface decides on its own
that I should get the Japanese interface instead of an English one, which is
just annoying.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<

The annoyance here is that setting the default language to Japanese sets the
locale, and then programs that are coded correctly for international use do
all sorts of 余計なお世話 when you try to type English. Sigh. I wonder if
this could be changed so that everything but what the OS does with bytes
spat at it by dumb software works "normally". Of course, much important
software, such as Band-in-a-Box, is also dumb about text display. Sigh,
again.

Inversely (and only subtly different from your point), it's realy nice that,
for example, Epson printers bought in Japan will install an English
interface on a set-up-for-English OS. Thank you, Epson.

[Peter Clark]

Dear Chris,
 
I've been using Nuance PDF software with no problems. I also needed more features than the basic Reader, but balked at the AU$600 Acrobat was asking.
 
www.nuance.com 
 
Peter Clark

> Adobe Acrobat Standard (I want to view PDFs, print to PDFs attaching a
> password, and annotate--with as little overhead as possible). I am
> open to using the brand name software if alternatives aren't up to
> snuff, but if there's a gem in this space that someone is aware of it
> would make my day. (On the mac I use Skim to view pdfs. Oh so fast and
> smooth!)

---

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[Alex Koolhof]

Jamming has been upgraded and renamed Logophile.  There is both a Mac and Windows version.  It can handle multiple dictionary file types (epwing, edict, eijiro, and many more, as well as user-created dictionaries.  Logophile is also much faster and efficient than its predecessor, Jamming.

read all about it here.  fairly well priced too (3000 yen or so): http://dicwizard.jp/logophile/

alex

Alexander Koolhof - アレックサンダー　クールホフ
Japanese to English Translation - 日英翻訳
Tel: 090-3505-8587
Email: tast...@gmail.com

--