formatting individual columns for different languages, including double-byte characters

[Sandra]

I've used google and my newsreaders searchers and haven't found a reference
to this problem. My apologies if I missed an already posted discussion.

The fastest way for me to state my question is to tell you what I need to
do.

I am making a personal Chinese dictionary based on the vocabulary I'm
learning in class. It has seven columns, in the following order:
romanization, english meaning, traditional printed-style Chinese characters,
cursive characters, simplified printed-style Chinese characters, and, well,
the rest aren't a problem so I'll ignore them.

The first column uses the English language and Arial to enter the
romanization. The second column uses English and Arial to enter the english
meaning. I've formatted all the characteristics I need into these two
columns and they work just fine.

The third column needs to use traditional Chinese input and a traditional
Chinese font as well as formatting. The formatting is fine. But I have to
manually change input methods from English to Chinese to get Chinese
characters. It works fine, but it's a pain to have to switch IMEs, even with
a language bar hotkey.

The fourth column is no problem because it takes the cells from the third
column and renders them in a different font. A simple equals formula does
this automatically.

But then, when I get to the fifth column, I have to remember to shift to a
third IME--simplified Chinese.

And then I have to remember to switch back to English for the next row.

Through functions (only a few) and preset formatting for the entire column,
I've managed to automate everything but the switching among IMEs. I want to
automate that too. Columns One, Two and Four are already fine, so I'll skip
them. However, I want every cell of Column Three to use Traditional Chinese
IME (and formatting), and of Column Five to use simplified Chinese IME (and
formatting). I want to do this and still preserve the over all English-ness
of the worksheet.

Any way to do this?

Thanks,
Sandra Rosenzweig

 

[Sandra]

Sorry--there should be an apostrophe in the first line: newsreader's.

 

[Dave Peterson]

First, this response can't really help 'cause I've never used any language
except for English (and I haven't installed any multilanguage support).

But since you haven't gotten any response, maybe you could test it.

Do you change the input method within excel?

If yes, does anything get recorded when you do this manually when you're
recording a macro?

If yes, then maybe you can automate the switch based on the column of the
activecell.

If you're with me still....

You could use a shell of a program like this:

Option Explicit
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Select Case Target(1).Column
Case Is = 1, 3, 5: MsgBox "ime"
Case Else: MsgBox "not ime"
End Select
End Sub


rightclick on the worksheet tab that should have this behavior and select view
code. Then paste this in the code window.

Now go back to excel and select something in columns 1, 3, 5 (A, C, E) and
you'll see the message box.

You could replace those message boxes with a call to the procedures that adjust
the IME stuff:

Option Explicit
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Select Case Target(1).Column
Case Is = 1, 3, 5: Call DoIME
Case Else: Call DoNotIME
End Select
End Sub

Where doIME and donotIME are macros in a general module in your project.

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm


======
Hey, there ain't a chance in.....

If it doesn't work, you've wasted a few minutes. But if it does, you're one
happy polyglot!

 

[Sandra Rosenzweig]

Dave--Wow. I'll try this and report back. I really appreciate your
taking the time to walk me through this. Thanks and double thanks,

Sandra

 

[Sandra Rosenzweig]

OK. Dave, it didn't work. But at least I know why. Changing the
language input method isn't an Excel function; it's a Windows
function. Although it is possible to use shortcut keys within Word or
Excel to tell the language bar to change languages, the language input
method changes throughout Windows to all the apps. So, as far as I can
figure, one can't create a function within Excel that will tell the
language bar to change languages because Excel doesn't control that.
Does this sound right?

I still wish I could set up the inputlanguage for each column as part
of the template or style or something, but since I can't, I've colored
each non-english column a unique color to help me to remember that
something is different (i.e. so therefore change the IME, you dunce.)
This has cut down on my mistakes somewhat.

Thanks again for your help.

Sandra

 

[Dave Peterson]

I still don't know anything about this language stuff.

But maybe you could use some scripting routine or API call that you could use
inside your excel macro. But it's not something I can do.

Maybe a search of google newsgroups would lead to a better solution. (Or a
direct question to one of the .scripting or VB newsgroups.

===
Just to stop typing errors: Maybe you can lock the range (depending on which
one you're doing) and protect the sheet.