Daily Dose of Hangul (한글)

Aside from blogging I am also an avid fan of Yahoo Answers.  These are the common questions being asked by those who are interested in typing Korean Characters known as 한글 (Hangeul sometimes romanized as Hangul) in their PC:

• How do I enable display of Korean Characters on my screen?
• How can I type Korean Characters from my PC?

I also did try a lot of foolish things before.  I downloaded a lot of Korean Fonts and they are never displayed properly on my screen and what is worst I don’t know what to type to display a certain character.  Anyway, if you are Microsoft Windows and Office XP user, Global IME is pre-installed in your computer. You just need to enable it doing the following simple steps (Note:  Please ensure you have your Operating System – OS installation disc with you) : 

• Open the Control Panel of your computer then select ‘Regional and Language Options’. 
• Go to ther Language Tab and select ‘Install East Asian Font’ tick box as seen below:

• At this point, you will be asked to insert your Windows installation disk as your PC tries to decompress the file.  Locate the file from the CD (in most cases the files being asked are automatically located during the process –there are about 3 reference files needed from the installation disc)
• Once this is done, you can then add Korean (and other East Asian Language such as Mandarin and Japanese) as one of the languages you can input with using your computer, see screen shot below:

• The language bar will then be installed in your windows task bar like the one shown below:

• To select Korean Input Method click on EN then select KO (Korean) to allow typing in 한글, notice that the windows task bar changes from EN to KO.  You can switch from alphabet to 한글 keyboard by just pressing ‘alt’ key.

• The Global IME works from almost all application that allows you type in text, but there are also exceptions.  Samsung PCs are normally marked with Korean Characters in the keyboard, incase you are using another type (just like my laptop) here is a guide on the 한글 characters in your keyboard (you just have to memorize it unless you want to mark your keyboard with it):

• If its hard for you to memorize the keyboard and do not wish to put any markings on it, you can draw the characters using the IME Writing Pad, just select it from your language bar.  The writing pad is guided, as you know, Korean writes in block formation.   The maximum number of characters that can be inputed is 4, panel from the right will suggest the block of characters, select from the suggestion on which block to use and it will automatically reflect on your document.  When using the writing pad be sure you are familiar with the correct strokes in writing 한글 as it plays an important role in character block recognition otherwise you might be wondering why the block that you just draw is not available from the panel.

If you are using Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 95, or Windows NT 4.0 and not running Office XP then you have to download the Global IME file 5.02 to enable East Asian Font in your PC.  Check out the Microsoft site.  The Global IME is pre-installed only for Windows and Office XP user.