Basic text processing can be split into four parts: first, a way to
display the text on your screen; second, a way to enter or change
text; third, a way to save the file permanently; and fourth, a way to
print out the text. When working in Japanese on a non-Japanese
computer, all of these phases are a bit more complicated than the
comparable activities in English. This is mostly due to the complexity
of the Japanese writing system, which has many more characters than
the English alphabet. Japanese also frequently employs multiple
character types - ideograms, or kanji (
); phonetic characters, hiragana
(
) and katakana (
); and English words - in a single
sentence.
This document describes ways to produce, display, print and save simple Japanese text on Athena. In order to use the various tools it describes, you must be familiar with the emacs text editor. You will also need some familiarity with basic Athena commands (such as those dealing with files and directories, how to use the mouse, etc.)