The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
What helps to show that Jehovah has been directing things in the worldwide Mandarin field?
A screenshot of early 3-line PDF material from 2001, based on the book Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?
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Official Pīnyīn web material is now also available for certain publications on the Watchtower Online Library (WOL) when the language is set to Chinese Mandarin (Traditional) - 中文繁體（國語）. (Before, such official Pīnyīn web material was only available on the WOL when the language was set to Chinese Mandarin (Simplified) - 中文简体（普通话）.) This new web material renders Traditional Chinese characters with Pīnyīn ruby text, kind of like the official Pīnyīn PDF files do. However, unlike the official Pīnyīn PDF files, which are digital versions of paper publications with fixed page sizes and line renderings, this official Pīnyīn web material inherits the ability of web material to adapt to displays of different shapes and sizes, making it much more mobile-friendly than PDFs, especially on smaller mobile devices.
Selecting the option to display Pīnyīn or not in the Watchtower Online Library (WOL) when the language is set to Chinese Mandarin (Traditional) - 中文繁體（國語） is done like it is when the language is set to Chinese Mandarin (Simplified) - 中文简体（普通话）. See this post for more details.
The affected tiandi.info short links will gradually be updated as time allows.
After a long period during which I have just been microblogging on Twitter (@TiandiLinksNews), something happened that I concluded merited a new full tiandi.info blog post:
(If you need login information for the parts of tiandi.info that require it, request it by email, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)
Official Pīnyīn web material is now available for certain publications on the Watchtower Online Library (WOL) when the language is set to Chinese Mandarin (Simplified) - 中文简体（普通话）. This new web material renders Simplified Chinese characters with Pīnyīn ruby text, kind of like the official Pīnyīn PDF files do. However, unlike the official Pīnyīn PDF files, which are digital versions of paper publications with fixed page sizes and line renderings, this official Pīnyīn web material inherits the ability of web material to adapt to displays of different shapes and sizes, making it much more mobile-friendly than PDFs, especially on smaller mobile devices.
While some unofficial apps and services have been around for a while that can produce computer-generated mobile-friendly Pīnyīn material (perhaps also with English meanings) for any Chinese publication, a big disadvantage of the material that they produce is that it has not been human-proofread. So, while such material can be quickly produced in great quantities, it contains significant quantities of errors, because computers do not have the wisdom and love required to adapt appropriately and lovingly to whatever life and human language may bring—human language, a remarkable gift from Jehovah, can potentially express all human thought, much of which still eludes modern computers. The official Pīnyīn web material that is now available can be relied upon to be of higher quality than any computer-generated material, since it has been human-proofread. (Of course, unofficial computer-generated material is generally better than nothing when it comes to publications for which official Pīnyīn material is not yet available.)
On the Watchtower Online Library (WOL), when the language is set to Chinese Mandarin (Simplified) - 中文简体（普通话） and when Pīnyīn ruby text is available for the loaded web page, an option must be selected from the menu displayed using the “hamburger menu” button on the bottom right for the Pīnyīn text to be displayed. (This setting is “remembered” like the other settings on this menu are. When Pīnyīn ruby text is not available for the loaded web page, the option is greyed out.)
This option can also be set using the ⚙ Preferences link near the bottom of WOL pages.
Many thanks to our God Jehovah and to our Leader Jesus, and to all the brothers and sisters who worked hard to make this official Pīnyīn web material available! Undoubtedly, it is just the first such mobile-friendly official Pīnyīn material and more is to follow, which will make it faster and easier for the many mobile device-using Mandarin field publishers around the world to be helped to more effectively speak in Mandarin “about the magnificent things of God”!—Acts 2:7–11.
The affected tiandi.info short links will gradually be updated as time allows.
The iPad and iPhone information pages have been renamed and revised:
The main changes are:
The 3-Line Material on the iPad information page has been updated with references to the new iPads that were announced today by Apple, including the iPad mini.
Official pinyin book files have become available for download on jw.org. Previously, the only pinyin publications available for download there were the pinyin Watchtowers. Now, PDF files for the pinyin versions of the Sing to Jehovah, Bible Teach, and Bearing Witness books are available as well.
More information and commentary on this historic development can be found in a new post at tiandi.info.
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
The new 3-Line Material on the iPad information page is now available. It lists reasons why it is advantageous in general to use the 3-line, etc. files in their native electronic format, rather than always just printing them out on paper. It also discusses why the iPad in particular is a very good device to view and use 3-line material on, and it contains many specific tips on how to use 3-line, etc. files on the iPad.
The 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page has been significantly updated. It now lists reasons why it is advantageous in general to use the 3-line, etc. files in their native electronic format, rather than always just printing them out on paper. It also discusses why it is desirable to be able to view and use 3-line material on the iPhone and the iPod touch specifically, and it contains many specific tips on how to use 3-line, etc. files on these devices.
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
A historic moment for the Cantonese field!
This tiandi.info post is about the historic news that the first official digital publication file with Cantonese Sidney Lau romanization is now available for download from jw.org. It is the file for the Sidney Lau version of the Bible Teach book.
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
The 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page has been updated. It now has a new section entitled Downloading Files.
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
He helped us in the Chinese field too, in many insanely great ways.
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
...but spirit and truth are not just paper tigers.
The PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page has been updated. The list of related pages has been reformatted to match my current design for that section, and the following sentence has been added to the caption for the GoodReader for iPad screenshot with a note annotation containing Chinese characters and pinyin:
To quickly and easily type pinyin with proper diacritical tone marks on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you may use the app Pinyin Typist. [Full disclosure: I am the creator of Pinyin Typist.]
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
Well, in the Chinese field, we should go to where the Chinese people are, right?
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
To further explain how the XLP-iPhone-A5 files may work well on a variety of mobile devices, the following is now included on the 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page:
It appears that more and more, the 3-line and pinyin PDF files will be used on computers, including mobile devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad, rather than printed out on paper. The files named with “XLP-iPhone-A5” have the same content as the regular files, but they use A5 as the paper size. They are especially suited for display on devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and other devices with similarly sized screens, such as Android phones.
The XLP-iPhone-A5 files should also be a good fit on 6" (15.2 cm) screen Kindles and other similarly sized devices, as well as on tablets with 7" (17.8 cm) screens, as long as these devices have PDF support. (Note that landscape orientation may work best, as explained below.) Some may prefer to use these files on larger mobile devices like the Kindle DX or the iPad as well.
Of course, while the XLP-iPhone-A5 files will be easier to read on mobile devices than the files that use A4/Letter as the paper size, the latter are able to fit more information onto each page—the XLP-iPhone-A5 files just give you more options as you decide which text size/screen size/device orientation/file navigation ease combination works best for you.
Similar information will also be added to download pages featuring XLP-iPhone-A5 files.
The PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page has been updated with screenshots of the current version of GoodReader for iPad, with its revised annotation controls. (The screenshots show annotations applied to a Watchtower PDF downloaded from jw.org.) Also, captions have been added to the GoodReader for iPad screenshots, and the following paragraph has been added to the page text:
Annotations made to a PDF file in GoodReader on an iPhone, iPod touch, or an iPad are autosaved.
The PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page has been updated to include information about Adobe Reader X, the new version of Adobe Reader that brings a significant new feature re annotation compared to previous versions.
Also, some screenshots have been added of GoodReader for iPad, showing annotations applied to a Watchtower PDF downloaded from jw.org.
Much of the rest of the text has been revised as well.
GoodReader, an early favourite iOS (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad) PDF viewing application of many, now supports PDF annotations in its 3.0 and above versions. The PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page has been updated accordingly.
The PDF Annotation (Commenting) page has been renamed as the PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page, to better communicate that highlighting, which is a major part of what many do in the course of their personal study, is included in PDF annotation.
Also, much of the page has been rewritten, and much information has been added. For example, a couple of new paragraphs summarize how because of the popularity of mobile devices like the iPad and because of features like annotation, link navigation, searchability, and downloadability, PDFs and other possible future digital publication files could have a big effect on us, both as individuals and as a worldwide organization. Also, information has been added concerning how to annotate PDF files that have not had commenting enabled on them. Such files include non-LN-A 3-line PDF files and the official pinyin PDF files from jw.org. Some new tools mentioned, in addition to those already mentioned, include PDF-XChange Viewer and Foxit Reader, as well as the upcoming new version of GoodReader for iPad. So, it would probably be well worth your while to take a few minutes to check out the new PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page.
Related links:
