FAQ: MS Word Phonetic Guide Ruby Text in Pinyin Instead of Zhuyin, or Vice-Versa

Getting Chinese to Work in Windows Shouldn't Be This Hard...

I am trying to use MS Word's Phonetic Guide to place Pinyin ruby text over Chinese characters, but Word is automatically generating Zhuyin (bopomofo) instead? Can I force it to convert the sounds to Pinyin instead?

This problem usually arises when the Chinese characters were inputted using the Traditional (Taiwan) IME. The underlying character encoding makes the system assume you want Zhuyin instead of Pinyin. But there is a way to change the encoding after the fact, without changing the Chinese characters (and without using the PRC IME, but I should mention that in Vista and Windows 7 - or XP with the MSPY 2010 or 2007 update - the PRC IME also does traditional characters).

To change the encoding of Chinese characters you have already typed, in Word 2003 or earlier, find "Reveal formatting" in the Format menu. In Word 2007, use Word Options to add the "Reveal formatting" button to the Quick Access Toolbar, then click on the button. Then click on Languages, and change from traditional to simplified or vice-versa. Word should automatically and invisibly change the underlying character encoding for you.

The characters won't change - you need an Office Language Pack's Proofing Tools for simplified/traditional character conversion - but the underlying code points will change and that's all you need to do for this problem. Then try Phonetic Guide again.

Next time I do I will grab some screen shots for this page. I really don't like the Phonetic Guide feature - I prefer fonts with ruby text included - and you may encounter some conversion problems when making this formatting change, but it's worth a try.

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