Subject: How to chat in characters
How does one down load big 5?
How does one chat in characters from e.g. public sites in the West
(that don’t have big five installed)
You don’t download or install Big 5. Big 5 is a system for encoding language data. You will need a Traditional Chinese language pack (if you’re using Windows) that will let Windows understand how to decode that, and those can be found for download in the Microsoft site. There are a number of programs that will allow you to type in Big 5, such as NJStar Communicator or Dr. Eye though. And if you want to use characters on a website, that should be fine, although the person reading it will need to have the language pack installed to be able to see the characters as anything other than nonsense. Same goes for using them in ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, or even IRC. On a message board, the board software has to be configured to allow Chinese, so you’ll have to ask board admin.