Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A: STGuru was created based MLEditor. In future editions, current features of editing and code conversion engine will not be reduced in both program, but the improvement of MLEditor will be focused on its major feature as a multi-language text editor. STGuru will focus on the services of code conversion between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

If a user is mainly interested in the feature of code conversion between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, STGuru is the best choice. But if you are more interested in the feature of text editing, MLEditor is better. Since the code conversion engine of MLEditor is already excellent, if you are interested in both text editing and general purpose GBK/Big5 conversion, and you are already satisfied with current GBK/Big5 engine of MLEditor, there is no need for you to turn to STGuru from MLEditor.

V2.What's the difference between the three language versions of STGuru?

A: The fundamental functions of three language versions are just the same. They differ in UI language, installation language and documentation language.

Edition	UI Language	Documentation Language	Installation Language
Standard Edition	Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English	Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English	English
Simplified Chinese Edition	Simplified Chinese	Simplified Chinese	Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese Edition	Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English	Traditional Chinese	Traditional Chinese

Code Conversion (C)

C1. What's the importance for "Simplified Chinese" / "Traditional Chinese" conversion within GBK table?

A: Besides conversion between GBK and Big5 directly, conversion between "Simplified Chinese" (S) and "Traditional Chinese" (T) within GBK table (GBK S-T conversion) is also very useful if properly applied, especially for Simplified Chinese users.

The "Traditional Chinese" characters in the GBK table produce a one to one map for the whole Big5 table. A user can apply (as an option) current word adjustment configuration in a GBK S-T conversion. These are the facts upon which such conversion can be very useful.

Under Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, some functions below can also be realized by Unicode "Simplified Chinese"/"Traditional Chinese" conversion provided by STGuru. Since Windows 9x and Me don't support Unicode, you can only realize the following functions by GBK "Simplified Chinese"/"Traditional Chinese" conversion if you are working on a Simplified Chinese Windows 9x/Me.

For its importance, two accelerator keys are assigned to the GBK S-T conversion so user can use them more conveniently.

Ctrl+Shift+F: GBK Simplified Chinese -> GBK Traditional Chinese

Ctrl+Shift+J: GBK Traditional Chinese -> GBK Simplified Chinese

1) Same word adjustment configuration. User can optionally apply current word adjustment configuration a GBK S-T conversion, the so its conversion quality is same as a GBK/Big5 conversion, since the word adjustment configuration is the same. This option can be set on or off in the "Code Conversion" page in the "Options" dialog box. The default setting is enabled.

2) Convert materials you get from Traditional Chinese (Big5) web pages to Simplified Chinese (GBK) in a more convenient way. Under a Simplified Chinese operating system, the traditional way is to save these pages to files, and convert the saved files to GBK by some tool. Now a user can copy contents on the web page directly with the select + copy commands. The text the user copied is just GBK Traditional Chinese text. The user can now paste it to the upper edit area, and apply the GBK T->S command to get corresponding Simplified Chinese text at professional quality.

3) Interaction with a Big5 web page/site directly and correctly. A user under a Simplified Chinese operating system can interact with a Big5 web page / site with GBK "Traditional Chinese" text directly. Just put your original text in the upper edit area and perform the GBK S->T conversion. Now you have GBK Traditional Chinese text at professional conversion quality. Just copy this GBK Traditional Chinese text and paste it to where it should be on the Big5 web page/site, and press submit or similar button when you have finished filling the form. This is just the same as you interact with the same Big5 web page / site with real Big5 text under a Big5 operating system.

4) Edit Big5 web page visually. When a user under a Simplified Chinese system hopes to make a web page in Traditional Chinese, the traditional way is to prepare an original file in Simplified Chinese (GBK), and convert the file to a Traditional Chinese (Big5) file by some conversion tool. When we need to do some minor adjustment in the file, usually we have to go through this somewhat complex method each time. Now with the help of STGuru, a user can edit Big5 web page visually in a visual web page editor, such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. We can edit what we hope to appear in the Big5 page in Simplified Chinese in the upper edit area of STGuru, and perform GBK S->T to get corresponding GBK Traditional Chinese text. Now copy the GBK Traditional Chinese text to the Big5 web page in the web page editor. It's just OK now! What we get is just the final Big5 web page.

5) Edit "Traditional Chinese" in a general Simplified Chinese editor, or edit or print "Simplified Chinese" and "Traditional Chinese" together. Text in GBK and Big5 code cannot show correctly together. Using "Traditional Chinese" in the GBK table instead of the actual Big5 text is a good way to show "Traditional Chinese" together with "Simplified Chinese". Sometimes we do not care what the code is for a character. We are just interested in how the characters look, and we hope to print the characters after some editing. For such a purpose, we can get GBK "Traditional Chinese" and use it for such purpose.

C2. What's the importance for Unicode-related conversions?

A: Unicode-related conversion can be a big help if you are working on a NT/2000/XP/2003 system. When you copied text from a web page, or edit text in notepad or some other Unicode program, the format for the data you are processing is Unicode data. Since the code format in STGuru and many other programs are not Unicode, but GBK/Big5 or other non-Unicode format data, some times you may meet unrecognizable data after copy and paste data between these two kinds of programs.

The Unicode "Simplified Chinese" and "Traditional Chinese" conversion function can help you convert Unicode text directly without editing it in STGuru. The conversion between Unicode/Unicode BE and GBK/Big5/UTF-8 can help you conversion data between Unicode and non-Unicode programs.

C3. How to perform perfect code conversion by STGuru?

A: Please refer to How to perform perfect code conversion by STGuru.

C4. How to convert MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access... and files in many other non-txt formats?

Basics

To convert a file in this kind of non-text format, a guideline is:

1) Converting it into a format STGuru recognizes

2) Converting the middle file from Simplified Chinese to Traditional, or vice versa, at professional quality with STGuru

3) Converting the converted file back to the original special file format.

Middle files are usually XML (XML is UTF-8), HTML or pure text files. XML (UTF-8) is the first choice as the middle file to be used by STGuru. This is because the formatting of a file can usually be kept while being converted into XML, and XML is the future standard to be supported by all major applications.

Due to some special features of MS Office, for XML (UTF-8) files converted from an MS Office file format by the respective program's "Save As" function, converting these files directly by STGuru's UTF-8 conversions between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese can often fail. The suggested solution is to open the XML files by Windows Notepad first, copy the content from within Notepad, and then convert the clipboard content by STGuru's Unicode Simplified Chinese/Traditional Chinese conversion (please refer to the procedures for MS Word conversion below for details).

Conversion for MS Word Files

(Listed below are the steps to convert from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese. If you want to convert from Traditional Chinese to Simplified Chinese, you can use Unicode "Traditional" to "Simplified" in step 5)

1) Open the MS Word file (*.rtf; *.doc) in Simplified Chinese to be converted, such as sample.doc;

2) Save as an XML file (this function requires Office 2003+) with menu command: File->Save As->Save as type: XML Document, such as sample.xml; (this type is available in MS Word 2003)

3) Open this XML document with Windows Notepad, which can be found in the Accessories part of All Programs in the Windows Start menu. You can drag file sample.xml into Notepad to open it, or open the file in the traditional way by menu command File->Open;

4) Copy all text in Notepad: Select All (Ctrl+A) + Copy (Ctrl+C);

5) Convert contents in the clipboard by STGuru's Unicode conversion function: STGuru menu command Code Conversion -> Clipboard Conversion: More->Unicode "Simplified Chinese"->Unicode "Traditional Chinese";

6) Paste the content in the clipboard back to the Notepad to overwrite the original contents: Select All in the Notepad (Ctrl+A) + Paste (Ctrl+V);

7) Save changes made to the Notepad and exit;

8) Double-click sample.xml, and the system will open it with MS Word. You will find that all formatting and graphs are saved while the text has been perfectly converted into Traditional Chinese. If you find anything else to adjust, such as font or font size, etc., you can do it now. Once you are satisfied, you can save this file back as a MS Word file (*.rtf; *.doc).

Other notes: You are not suggested to convert the above-mentioned XML files with STGuru's UTF-8 conversion between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

The Conversion of Bullets and Numbering in MS Word

Sometimes bullets and numbering, especially bullets, may not be properly converted with the above steps. This is because bullets are represented with a complicated multi-point system by MS Word, and the representation of the same bullet in a Simplified Chinese Word document is different from that in a Traditional Chinese Word document.

If you find your bullet hasn't been successfully converted, you are suggested to convert them manually. It is just simple to do that. Please refer to The Conversion of Bullets and Numbering in MS Word for details.

Conversion for MS Excel Files

1) Open the MS Excel file to be converted, and save it in XML format (“XML Spreadsheet”) (this function requires Office 2003+). When converting to XML files, formatting for all formatted text contents can be reserved except for graphs, which cannot be kept in MS Excel 2003. We will leave this trouble to be solved in Step 3;

2) XML means UTF-8. You can convert the XML document in the same methods as described above for MS Word conversion (step 3-step 7);

3) Open the converted XML file with MS Excel (you can open it by MS Excel by simply double-clicking the XML file). Now you can find that all text contents have been perfectly converted from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese, and the original formatting is also kept. If there are graphs that you haven't been able to convert when you converting the Excel file to XML file in step 1, you can open the original Excel file and copy these graphs. You can also apply other adjustment wherever appropriate. When you are satisfied, save this file back to Excel (*.xls etc.).

Conversion for MS PowerPoint Files

We haven't found a satisfactory total solution for PowerPoint files in a PowerPoint version before 2007. So the only suggestion is that you break the file down and convert parts one after another. Please let us know if you have a better solution. PowerPoint 2007 supports conversion to XML. Those who use PowerPoint 2007 can be benefited by this feature to convert PowerPoint files in total in a method similar to that described for MS Word.

Conversion for MS Access Tables

Please refer to I have an Access database to convert.

Conversion for Trados TM

Please refer to Converting an English to Simplified Chinese TM to an English to Traditional Chinese TM.

If a file format cannot be converted to XML, HTML or pure text file, you may have to handle the file part after part individually.

C5. I have an Access database to convert

You can convert tables in an Access database one by one in the following procedure:

1) Export an Access table into XML files (right-click a table -> Export -> Select "XML" as the file type to export).

2) The exported XML files are in UTF-8 format. Convert the exported XML files from UTF-8 Simplified Chinese into UTF-8 Traditional Chinese by STGuru (Menu command: Code Conversion -> File/Site Conversion -> UTF-8 Simplified to UTF-8 Traditional ).

3) Import the converted XML files back into the Access database.

C6. I am a translator. I want to convert a Trados TM from the pair English -> Simplified Chinese into the pair English -> Traditional Chinese. How can I do?

1) Export the TM into Translator's Workbench files (Workbench: File -> Export -> OK -> "Translator's Workbench (*.txt) -> export). The exported file is in UTF-8 format.

2) Convert the exported XML files from UTF-8 Simplified Chinese into UTF-8 Traditional Chinese by STGuru.

3) With the replace all function of any editor, replace all occurrence of "Seg L=ZH-CN" into "Seg L=ZH-TW" (for Taiwan Traditional Chinese) or to "Seg L=ZH-HK" (for Hong Kong Traditional Chinese.

4) Create a blank English -> Traditional Chinese TM.

5) Import the processed XML file back into the new TM. Successful!

C7. Something is wrong in my UTF-8 conversion...

Sometimes the result XML, as converted directly by STGuru's UTF-8 conversion function, will produce some error while being imported back to Word. If this happens, you can change a way in conversion: First you can open the XML file by Notepad (the one in Windows accessories), which can recognize UTF-8. Then you can copy the normal text in Notepad to be converted by STGuru's clipboard conversion between Unicode Simplified Chinese and Unicode Traditional Chinese, and paste it back to Notepad and save it. Now when you import the result XML into Word again, everything will be fine.

Customization Walkthroughs (D)

D1 Why We Need Custom Word Adjustment Packs?
D2 How to Make a Custom Word Adjustment Pack / Custom Word Adjustment Library?
D3 How to Merge Two or More Libraries?
D4 How to Add, Delete, Modify, Import or Export Word Adjustment Pairs in Bulk?
D5 The Capitalizations of Some English Words in a Library Are Not Correct. Is There Any Easy Way to Correct Them?
A: For details, please refer to the relevant explanations in A.2 Word Adjustment Engine Customization Walkthroughs.

Other Questions on How to Use the Product (U)

U1. How to input Chinese in a non-Chinese system?

A: sometimes we may meet some problem in inputting Chinese characters when we are on a non-Chinese system. Please read the topic About Input Method in User's Guide for more details.

U2. The text I pasted into STGuru changed into to "????"

A: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista use Unicode as their basic language encoding. When you copy text from a web page and past it onto an edit area of STGuru or another ANSI program, or when you edit text in Windows Notepad, the text you operate on is in Unicode encoding. This is an encoding different from GBK/Big5, the encoding used by the edit areas of STGuru.

If you edit text in another Unicode editor, and use STGuru only for Simplified Chinese/Traditional Chinese conversions, you can convert your Unicode text with STGuru's clipboard Unicode CHS/CHT conversion functions:

Menu command -> Code Conversion -> Common Conversions -> Clipboard Conversion: Simplified Chinese (Unicode) -> Traditional Chinese (Unicode);

or,

Menu command -> Code Conversion -> Common Conversions -> Clipboard Conversion: Traditional Chinese (Unicode) -> Simplified Chinese (Unicode).

If you want to paste the text into STGuru to edit, if the language of the text you copy is the same as that for the operating system (for example, when you copy Simplified Chinese text on a Simplified Chinese Windows 2000), sometimes the text you paste can be displayed correctly. This is because the operating system converts the text automatically during the pasting operation. Sometimes, however, the automatic conversion does not happen (such as now, you see these “????”), you need to perform clipboard Unicode to GBK/Big5 conversion manually before pasting the text into the edit area of STGuru:

Clipboard Unicode to GBK conversion:

Click the U->G button in the upper/lower toolbar.

Clipboard Unicode to Big5 conversion:

Click the U->B button in the upper/lower toolbar.

Note: If the language for the upper/lower area is Simp. Chin. (GBK), the button U->G is available for use, while if the language for the upper/lower area is Trad. Chin. (Big5), the button U->B is available for use. If you do not have the required U->G or U->B button on the upper/lower toolbar, please set the language for that area into the corresponding language - Simp. Chin. (GBK) or Trad. Chin. (Big5) - then the button will change to show the desired U->G or U->B image, and the required conversion function is available for use.

This is conversion from Unicode to GBK or Big5. If you want to convert from GBK/Big5 into Unicode, you can click the G->U / B->U button on the toolbar.

Order, Registration and Technical Support (R)

R1. I am interested in ordering a license, what's the price?

A: Please check How to Buy a License for STGuru? for details.

R2: Is there technical support for STGuru users?

A: Sure, we provide web-based technical support for all registered users. Most problems you may meet, how ever, may be solved by reading help, which is rather detailed and clearly arranged. This FAQ also provides answers for some common questions. If you still have problem after that, just feel free to write us. We'll help you as soon as we can.

R3. If I bought a license for STGuru, can I use it for more than one computer?

A: No. You should buy a license for each computer. There is discount for volume purchase (see below).

R4. Do you provide a discount for volume purchase?

A: Yes. If you buy more than 1 STGuru license at one time, you can enjoy discount. Please check How to Buy a License for STGuru? for details.

However, if you haven't received a discount when you ordered more than one licenses, there will be no refund for the difference.

R5. I cannot find where to input the registration code! Can you give a detailed explanation on software registration procedure?

A: There are a demo version and a full version of STGuru. The demo version is for public trial, while the full version is provided only to registered users. You CANNOT register STGuru through a demo version, and there is no place to input a registration code in the demo version. The registration code is to be used on the full version, which will provide detailed instructions on how to register after you have installed and run the full version.

Detailed registration procedure:

1) Order: After you have placed an order, you will receive registration code and the download URL for the full version.

2) Installing Full Version: After you have downloaded the full version, you can install it on a computer you determined to apply your license. You should activate the full version before you can use the full function of it. However, before you have activated the full version, there is a 7-day long temporary using period during which you can use most major functions on the computer. You are advised to activate the full version on this computer as early as possible during these 7 days, or the full version will be looked again on your computer after the 7-day temporary using period expired.

3) Applying for Activation Code: According to the instruction on the full version, send your order ID, registration code, machine code and contact information to us (service@speedy7.com). We will create an activation code based on the information and send it back.

4) Activation: Input correct registration code and activation code on the full version, and click the button "Register" to activate STGuru on your computer. You can use full function of the full version on your computer for a long time after it was activated.

ATTENTION: Please keep your order ID, full version download URL, registration code and activation code in a safe place. The activation code for your computer is only depending on your hardware configuration. It's valid even after you have re-installed, updated your operating system, or re-formatted your hard disk.

R6. Should I have to request a new activation code after I have re-installed my OS, changed an OS, or formatted my hard disk?

A: Please keep your order ID, full version download URL, registration code and activation code in a safe place. The activation code for your computer is only depending on your hardware configuration. It's valid even after you have re-installed, updated your operating system, or re-formatted your hard disk.

R7. How to get a newer version? Should I pay for newer versions?

A: If your computer where STGuru is installed is connected to Internet, when there is a new version available, the software will detect it and download it automatically. If your computer cannot connect to Internet, you can check STGuru Homepage (www.speedy7.com/cn/stguru) when you are online for new version. If you find a new version, you can download the most recent version at the URL you received when you order your product.

We provide 3 years free update. So you will not pay any thing for the new updates in the coming 3 years. If you still hope to update the newer versions after the 3 years, you can purchase an update at a favorable price.