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Introduction
WinVNKey is a free Windows-based keyboard driver for
typing Vietnamese and many other languages in the world.
WinVNKey supports
most, if not all, Vietnamese character sets (encodings) known so far. For
example, it supports Vietnamese Unicode, VISCII, VNI, VPS, ABC, ... as well as obsolete Vietnamese character sets
used in the 1980’s. It can also be used to type many national languages
such as French, German, Polish, Czech, Russian, Pali, Pinyin, Japanese, etc.. In particular, users can obtain Hán
(Chinese) and Nôm (Vietnamese classic) characters
by either typing their pronunciations in Vietnamese or Pinyin, or entering
numerical codes.
WinVNKey
has a very smart algorithm to handle diacritical mark placement and to
correct spelling. Users can type the
marks anywhere in the syllable of a Vietnamese word and WinVNKey
can figure out if the word is Vietnamese and will position them
accordingly. If adding a new character to an existing Vietnamese word makes
it non Vietnamese, WinVNKey can automatically
undo all the marks that were typed for that word if desired. This feature is very useful when typing
text in mixed languages such as Vietnamese and English. In addition, WinVNKey
can correct spelling on the fly (while typing) for single, double, and
triple words based on a combination of grammar rules and databases.
Users can
also turn on Hán Nôm
mode where typing Vietnamese or Pinyin pronunciations, or some other
numerical codes, will result in Hán and Nôm characters. WinVNKey
maintains a very large database of Hán Nôm characters based on the Unicode standard. It
provides an interface for users to update the Hán
Nôm database with files from the latest Unicode
standard without waiting for the next release of WinVNKey.
Users can also define their own characters and how to type them.
Support for
conversion of character sets in plain text or rich text (RTF) is very
powerful. About a hundred character sets are supported, which allow users
to convert from any character set to any other character set. Users can
also add new character sets simply by providing a file that contains the
mapping of that character set to Unicode.
WinVNKey is
unique in the market regarding support for converting Vietnamese documents
in MS Word that contain fonts from different character sets. For example,
an old Word document can contain ABC fonts, VNI fonts, Microsoft fonts,
etc. This means it contain characters from at least three character sets:
TCVN, VNI, and Unicode. To convert this document to Unicode, users simply
save the file as an RTF document, then run the converter in WinVNKey. The converter will list the names of all the
fonts used in the document and ask the users to specify the new fonts, one
for each old font.
The key strength of WinVNKey
is its powerful support for macro processing and setting customization that
can meet the need of the most demanding users. WinVNKey
exposes hundreds of settings to users.
The product is shipped with a number of predefined sets of settings
stored in text files. Users can
modify these files directly, or via the user interface, to define their own
typing methods and macros. There are no limits on the number of macros
users can define and load. Many users have reported using hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese macros in WinVNKey
without degrading its performance.
This is a good testament to the extremely fast and efficient
algorithm in WinVNKey that handles both macros
and Hán Nôm
typing. Note that if Hán Nôm typing is enabled, WinVNKey will have to handle hundreds of thousands of Hán Nôm entries. Thus, even if a user thinks he does not
use any Vietnamese macros, WinVNKey actually
works hard behind his back if he turns on Hán Nôm but he would not see any slowdown in performance.
View screenshots
of WinVNKey.
WinVNKey Highlights
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Support
user interfaces in English and Vietnamese
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Support
most, if not all, Vietnamese character sets and 45 other national character
sets details
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Support
many Vietnamese typing methods: VNI, Telex, VIQR, Microsoft, etc. details
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Support
smart typing of Vietnamese accent marks
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Correct
spelling for single words and compound words
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Support
typing many languages simultaneously (more than 30 countries) details
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Support
typing Hán Nôm by
Vietnamese and Pinyin pronunciations, or by the four corner index method or
Canjie details
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Convert
character case for text selected by mouse in all applications, not just MS
Word details
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Recover
email from wrong UTF-8 transformation details
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Provide
Hỏi/Ngã (the Falling and Rising accent marks)
look-up for Vietnamese words details
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Provide
a Unicode typepad similar to Microsoft Characters
Map details
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Retype
documents details
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Convert
Vietnamese character sets in plain text documents details
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Convert
character sets and fonts for RTF documents (only need source font and
destination font) details
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Provide
fast macros to type Vietnamese syllables or word suffixes
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Provide
a variety of macros appropriate for many use cases details
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Support
hundreds if user-defined hot keys, which are designed to avoid collision
with other applications
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Support
Vietnamese typing in games (e.g., Audition) details
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Support
fast typing method Tubinhtran details
The long listing above still does not do justice
to WinVNKey. It simply has too many
functionalities to describe here.
Users can find them out by clicking the blue text (hyperlinks) in
the WinVNKey user interface to see the detailed
explanation, or see the articles about WinVNKey in Manual of WinVNKey
or the next section.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Articles about WinVNKey
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Express Manual for WinVNKey
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Download WinVNKey & Type Vietnamese
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Multilingual support in WinVNKey
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Understanding special
features of WinVNKey
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Typing Hán Nôm with WinVNKey (written in Vietnamese)
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Typing
Vietnamese in Audition games
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
News
• Date 2009-05-06: WinVNKey 5.5.456, released in two separate
categories:
- WinVNKey
5.5.456 for 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008,
Windows 7.
This 32-bit version supports 32-bit applications such as MS Office,
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, pidgin, etc. It can run on Vista or Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 (both 32-bit or 64-bit) without turning off UAC
(User Account Control) or Protected Mode.
- WinVNKey
5.5.456 for Windows NT/2K/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows7.
This 32-bit version is almost identical to (a)
but is compiled to run on earlier versions of Windows. Although it can run
on Windows 7, Windows 7 users should install (a) to get the most benefits.
You can see
detailed information in Vietnamese or English.
• Date 2008-01-28: released WinVNKey 5.5 444, with features:
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Convert
character case or character set for text selected by mouse in any
application
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Typing
method: allow other key to provide letter d
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Macro:
support new functions. Add tail macro type, process the Lazy Syllable macro
in smarter way
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Viet
Option Page: add function to change syllables, add some options
"Automatically change" and "Edit syllable”.
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Support
fast typing method Tubinhtran
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Older news
• Date 2007-08-09: released WinVNKey 5.5.431, with features:
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Support
smart typing of syllables: ie => iê, ue => uê, uye => uyê, ye => yê.
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Support
ÂuViệt Macintosh encoding (support typing method
and conversion of RTF and plain text.)
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Update
database of Nôm (single word) by Mr. Lê Sơn Thanh
(Khúc Thần), provided
on 8/6/2007.
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Support
Hán databases of Buddhism, including 27,364
single words and compound words. Typing by Vietnamese pronunciations
(select menu: Hán).
• Date 2007-08-01: released WinVNKey 5.5.429, with features:
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Strengthen
the ability to define the ^ sign
for each letter: a, e, o, and the hook for each letter: o and u.
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For
the first time, this version supports typing Hán
by Pinyin pronunciations with accent marks: 1, 2, 3, 4.
• Date 2006-08-06: released WinVNKey 5.5.424.
• Date 2006-07-14: released WinVNKey 5.5.420
• Date 2006-03-10: released WinVNKey 5.2.390
• Date 2006-02-10: released WinVNKey 5.2.383
• Date 2005-10-27: released WinVNKey 5.2.373
• Date 2005-10-06: released WinVNKey 5.2.372
• Date 2005-03-08: released WinVNKey 5.0 for Windows NT/2K/XP
• Date 2003-01-14: released WinVNKey 4.0 beta 3 for NT/95/98/ME
oOo
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