[Solved] OOo Writer switches to Chinese characters

[asewell]

Have a look at this picture. (The box under the word "check" is included so you can see what happens while you are typing)

For some reason OOo Writer occassionally automatically switches to Chinese characters rather than English characters. I have looked in tools->options->language settings->languages, but the Asian language support is greyed out.

In the past, after a few minutes it switches back. But this time... it's personal... er, I mean, this time it hasn't switched back.

Does anyone know what's going on? I don't even know what to search for in the FAQ.

Thanks, Alec

[acknak]

I think this must be a system or hardware level problem. OOo has no way to switch input methods so that typing the standard keys produces Chinese character codes; OOo doesn't deal with keyboard configuration or input methods at all (at least as far as I know).

I hate to ask, but have you checked your keyboard cable connections?

[asewell]

Heh, it's on a laptop, so no I haven't.

It seems a little bizzare, though, that OOo is the only program which is affected. I can, for instance, post on a forum.

But come to think of it, the same input problem happened when I was typing a search in the help file, so it must be bigger than just the Writer.

[acknak]

... OOo is the only program which is affected.

Ok, ok. Good point.

If this a new install/upgrade of OOo, or has it been working ok until now?

I'm afraid I still don't understand what the box in your screenshot is trying to show. Maybe you can explain a bit further.

[asewell]

Yeah, it's been working alright until now. Like I said, it occasionally switches to asian character mode, but it normally changes back after a little while. It switches while I'm typing, which makes me think there might be some kind of key combination which starts it off, that I type in accidentally. But maybe that's unlikely.

The box in the screenshot shows what happens when you're in asian character mode, when you type things in. For instance, in the screenshot I had just typed the word "check". When I typed "c" the bar below the word had some fairly simple characters in it, numbered 1-9. As I typed more letters in, the bar filled out with more and more complex characters, and combinations of characters. If I had pressed the spacebar, the word "check" would have been replaced with the three characters highlighted in blue. I'm no expert on languages, but this seems to be a pretty clever way of typing in a written language that has thousands of potential characters.

Anyway, thanks for helping. I appreciate it.

[Phil]

This box really puzzles me. It is nothing that I have ever seen with OOo.
Is there maybe some tool running (that was preinstalled) that is triggered by some key combination?
Maybe you can check all the preinstalled tools of the laptop.

Regards, phil

[asewell]

Genius. I thought it must have been OOo, because I only noticed it in the Writer. Turns out (after a quick Google search replacing "OOo Writer" with "Asus laptop") the Chinese character system turns on and off when you hold down the right alt key and press right shift, and it must get turned on for each program individually.

Thanks for all your help.

[Phil]

You're welcome!

I admit it was really quite tricky.

Thanks for adding "[Solved]" at the beginning of your first post title (by using the edit button). You can also select the green tick icon.

Kind regards,
phil

[acknak]

Nice catch Phil--Thanks!