|
|
| Why is everything in French, and how do I fix it? |
By Terry Lawrence, program director
MacWest Computer Society,
Vancouver. British Columbia
Canadians live in Igloos, subsist on Walrus Blubber, and speak French-Canadian.
Since about November of 1999, all Apple products (iMacs, G4s, iBooks, and Powerbooks) arriving in Canada have inexplicably been shipped by Apple on the assumption that we all speak French in Canada. Perhaps the government of Quebec has secretly been buying up Apple stock, or maybe some former FLQ members have moved to California and gotten jobs at Apple. Whatever the reason, it is causing a lot of problems for all Canadian purchasers outside of Quebec, and maybe even there, starting when you try to get past the Registration start-up screen the first time you turn on the computer. The start-up screen give you two choices: US or Canadian.
Choose Canadian, and you get a French-Canadian keyboard, meaning every time you type an “e” it has an accent, or when you hit the period key, you get a comma, etc., so you can’t even type your name in correctly. Choose US, and the computer won’t let you enter your Postal Code, because US postal codes don’t have any letters in them. It also won’t allow you to proceed to the next step until you enter a postal code. Oh well, I’ll just mail in my registration card, you say. Wrong! In the wonderful new Apple Internet era, there is no mail-in registration card in the box. It’s online, or nothing. So what you have to do is bypass the start-up screen, get set up on the internet, go to the Apple website, and register there.
To bypass the startup registration process, hold down the Apple (Command) key, and press “Q”, as in “Quit”. This will quit the registration process, and allow you to reset the computer to standard English language settings. There are four (4) control panels you will have to reconfigure.
Resetting the Date & Time Control Panel.
Taking the affected Control Panels alphabetically, select the “Date and Time” Control Panel by moving the mouse pointer over the Apple Menu at the top left hand corner of your screen, and holding down the mouse button. Drag the pointer down to Control Panels, and a list of all the Control Panels will open up to the right of the Apple Menu list. Keeping the mouse button held down, drag the mouse pointer over to the Date & Time Control Panel, and release the mouse button. This opens the control panel. The same procedure applies to opening any other control panel. At the top of the Date & Time window, you will see two buttons, labeled “Date Formats” and “Time Formats”. Click on Date Formats. In the window that opens, there is a button at the top for Region. Click on the button, and make sure that “US” is selected as the region. If you live in English speaking Canada, you are in the US, at least as far as Cupertino is concerned. Next, click the “OK” button to go back to the main Date & Time window. Click the “Time Formats” button and select “US” as the Region again. Click the “OK” button.
When you get back to the main Date & Time window, make sure you have the Daylight Savings option correct, and, while you‘re here anyway, put a check in the “Use a network time server” checkbox. This will cause your computer to automatically update itself with the correct time from an atomic clock in Washington or Ottawa whenever you connect to the internet, so you will always have the correct time. If you want to play with your other clock settings such as size, color, font, etc., click the “Clock Options” button and have fun. Otherwise, click the close box at the top left hand corner of the window, and we’ll move along to the next control panel you have to reset.
Resetting the Keyboard Control Panel.
Using the procedure already described, open the Keyboard Control Panel. You will see a list of countries with little flags and checkboxes beside them. Make sure that the checkboxes beside the Canadian flags - all three of them: Canadian - CSA, Canadian - ISO, and Canadian French - are unchecked. What you want to see is a grayed out check in the checkbox beside the US flag, and NO check marks anywhere else. If you see a US flag next to the clock in the menu bar, it means that something other than the US settings are still checked in addition to the US. Look again. OK. Close the Keyboard window.
Resetting the Numbers Control Panel.
Open the Numbers Control Panel and and where it says “Numbers Format”, make sure “US” is selected. This will cause the Dollar sign to revert to the left of the numbers instead of the right, and the decimal to revert to a decimal instead of a comma in documents with currency formats: for example; spreadsheets.
Resetting the Text Control Panel.
Finally, you must reset the “Text” Control Panel by selecting “English” instead of “Canadian French” in the list beside “Behavior”, and “Roman” from the Script list. Failure to do this will affect sort orders, word definitions in dictionaries, spell checking, and possibly some printer functions.
While we’re fixing screw-ups anyway . . . . Epson Printers, AppleWorks 5&6, & MS Word.
If you have an Epson (and only an Epson) printer, and you find the last letter or two of your printed documents are being clipped on the right edge, you must select “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu in AppleWorks, then select “General” preferences in AW 6, and check the “Fractional Character Widths” checkbox. This will work around the bug in the Epson printer drivers. While you’re here anyway, you may as well select your default Font and print Size. Then click the “Make Default” button, and click OK. In MS Word, the procedure is similar, and again, you need to enable Fractional Character Widths. |
|
