![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm a paid subscriber to ChinesePod. I do this mostly to get the personalized RSS feed which includes a PDF transcript of the daily dialogue. I can read the dialogue before I listen to it. I get to practice reading, listening, and sometimes writing. My vocabulary is somewhat spotty. The most convenient dictionary I own is the one on my Tablet PC because I can search for definitions via handwriting recognition. I end up writing out all the characters I don't immediately recognize. So far so good.
ChinesePod just went through a revamp. This typically means they drop support for transcripts using the traditional character set. (If it's like last time, a bunch of us complain for a bit, then it comes back.) So, no surprise, the PDF on my RSS feed has simplified characters, not the traditional ones.
What I've done before is do the conversion from simplified to traditional, throw it into a text file, then read the text file. (The conversion is context dependent so this isn't quite as cut and dried as it sounds sometimes.) However, since I actually keep the PDF files long term, what I want is the traditional characters in the PDF file. This way, I don't have a PDF and a text file that I need to keep together.
As it turns out, PDF Revu from Bluebeam Software, not only allows you to annotate PDFs in ink (via Tablet PC), it also allows you to edit the text inside the PDF. Also, they have a free 30 day trial. (I actually already own PDF Annotator which is cheaper, but less functional. Anyone whose manuscript I've critted has probably seen its output. PDU Revu does a whole bunch of other stuff, but the most compelling reason for me to get it is to alter text in an existing PDF. Otherwise, I can make do with PDF Annotator.)
From what I tried of it, the "edit text" feature does just that. You select it from the Edit menu, then you can insert changes to the text. However, it's not Unicode-friendly. Or, at least, I wasn't able to enter any Chinese text, not even when I explicitly specified a font with Chinese characters. So, I can't use it for the primary reason why I'd buy the program. (The good thing about the free 30 day trial is that I didn't have to spend any money to find this out. I may still write to them asking them to support Unicode though.) It also lets you do more traditional annotation. However, since it doesn't seem to do non-Latin characters, that's not helpful in this situation. (I have to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Can it really not have occurred to them that some people use non-Latin character sets?)
Preview, which comes for free with OS X, also lets you do PDF annotation (but not text editing). Moreover, it has no problems with Chinese characters at all. I can put each sentence in traditional characters below the original text in simplified characters, and it all comes out looking exactly as it's supposed to. (Caveat: I actually wrote it out long hand on my Tablet PC, saved it to a text file, moved it to my Mac, then pasted it into the PDF using Preview. I needed the handwriting practice. Also, like I said, the Tablet PC is my most convenient dictionary. However, I could have done this entirely on my Mac.) Fortunately, this time, there was enough room on each page, that I always had some place to put each sentence. (The reason why I wanted to edit the text in the first place was so that I didn't have to worry about this.)
It's not that Preview is more featureful, or a better program than either PDF Annotator or PDF Revu. However, its annotation feature is arguably more complete, and it does exactly what I needed it to do in this case.
[BTW, it just occurred to me that what I could have done was use PDF Revu to redact the simplified characters, then write in the traditional characters in its place. However, my handwriting is atrocious. I don't think that's a good idea for a document I want to keep around.]
Anyway, I hope ChinesePod resumes transcripts using traditional characters soon. However, at least I have a process in place for the mean time. Actually, I arguably get more practice making my own traditional version of each transcript, but life is short...
[If I have more time, or more cats to wax, I may rant on the Kindle and why it, like practically every other mobile device, is almost what I want...]
ChinesePod just went through a revamp. This typically means they drop support for transcripts using the traditional character set. (If it's like last time, a bunch of us complain for a bit, then it comes back.) So, no surprise, the PDF on my RSS feed has simplified characters, not the traditional ones.
What I've done before is do the conversion from simplified to traditional, throw it into a text file, then read the text file. (The conversion is context dependent so this isn't quite as cut and dried as it sounds sometimes.) However, since I actually keep the PDF files long term, what I want is the traditional characters in the PDF file. This way, I don't have a PDF and a text file that I need to keep together.
As it turns out, PDF Revu from Bluebeam Software, not only allows you to annotate PDFs in ink (via Tablet PC), it also allows you to edit the text inside the PDF. Also, they have a free 30 day trial. (I actually already own PDF Annotator which is cheaper, but less functional. Anyone whose manuscript I've critted has probably seen its output. PDU Revu does a whole bunch of other stuff, but the most compelling reason for me to get it is to alter text in an existing PDF. Otherwise, I can make do with PDF Annotator.)
From what I tried of it, the "edit text" feature does just that. You select it from the Edit menu, then you can insert changes to the text. However, it's not Unicode-friendly. Or, at least, I wasn't able to enter any Chinese text, not even when I explicitly specified a font with Chinese characters. So, I can't use it for the primary reason why I'd buy the program. (The good thing about the free 30 day trial is that I didn't have to spend any money to find this out. I may still write to them asking them to support Unicode though.) It also lets you do more traditional annotation. However, since it doesn't seem to do non-Latin characters, that's not helpful in this situation. (I have to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Can it really not have occurred to them that some people use non-Latin character sets?)
Preview, which comes for free with OS X, also lets you do PDF annotation (but not text editing). Moreover, it has no problems with Chinese characters at all. I can put each sentence in traditional characters below the original text in simplified characters, and it all comes out looking exactly as it's supposed to. (Caveat: I actually wrote it out long hand on my Tablet PC, saved it to a text file, moved it to my Mac, then pasted it into the PDF using Preview. I needed the handwriting practice. Also, like I said, the Tablet PC is my most convenient dictionary. However, I could have done this entirely on my Mac.) Fortunately, this time, there was enough room on each page, that I always had some place to put each sentence. (The reason why I wanted to edit the text in the first place was so that I didn't have to worry about this.)
It's not that Preview is more featureful, or a better program than either PDF Annotator or PDF Revu. However, its annotation feature is arguably more complete, and it does exactly what I needed it to do in this case.
[BTW, it just occurred to me that what I could have done was use PDF Revu to redact the simplified characters, then write in the traditional characters in its place. However, my handwriting is atrocious. I don't think that's a good idea for a document I want to keep around.]
Anyway, I hope ChinesePod resumes transcripts using traditional characters soon. However, at least I have a process in place for the mean time. Actually, I arguably get more practice making my own traditional version of each transcript, but life is short...
[If I have more time, or more cats to wax, I may rant on the Kindle and why it, like practically every other mobile device, is almost what I want...]
