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For those of you who like to read manga in Japanese and English, whether for comparing translations, editing out translation errors, study or just fun. Have you found it annoying how you have to have two windows screen open to compare the two versions, going back and forth so many times that the time you used to do that you could have done something more productive like finish what you were working on. Or for those that use just a text pad to translate manga from Japanese to English and have to do the same switching back and forth routine.
Well this little page is to help you save time. What do we need to get started? well that's easy. To save time and effort in your future products I highly recommend you get the following three programs. Only one of witch requires you to purchase it although the demo is usable... Never the less, here they are:
Spike. A program created by my good friend Lord Riff Raff over at Pyrosoftware. With this little program you can have a text editor that is small and very helpful that can stay on top through out your edits so that you can just move the screen around and not worry about having to switch back and forth with just a normal text pad. It's a free program so post your thanks in here and I'll send him the message
.
WON'T WORK IN VISTA
Cdisplay. With this program you can open up and view zipped images via drag and drop. But that's not all. I'll get into the technical stuff later, or you can jump to it by clicking this.
Finally the last program you will need is...
Better file renamer. With this program you can rename the files that you unzipped to something more usable when you want to do the dual E-J manga display technique. --- A free renaming program is called CkRename might work just as well.
Now after you download these programs install them and then lets continue.
Ok, I'm guessing everything is installed and you are ready to go. First off, the easier of the three programs, Spike.
Open up spike and you'll be welcomed with a nice.... welcome message. That pretty much teaches you how to use the program. It might be a little hard to see, so I have a picture showing where the stay on top area and the vertical or horizontal bar switcher area is located.
So follow the green arrow, click the area that is just an empty box and you will get an A that means that it's on top, click the same area again and it'll be just like a normal window(meaning it won't always stay on top) toggle the V or H to what you prefer, I like the Verticle view.
Cdisplay has three areas that we will want to edit. So open the program, look up at the top bar for something that says Options click that then go to Configure. You will now see a window like this....
Just check the boxes how I have it.
What I have checked makes it so that when you are viewing manga you can view two pages at a time. If you don't like that, just simply uncheck it. Also the other box has it so that the pages fit to the screen that you are looking at. If you do only one page at a time and it seems like the image you are looking at is bigger than the screen then try the Fit If Oversized option.
Next click on the tab that says Program settings (4th one across from the left). It should look like this....
I have it so that when in double page mode you can skip two pages at a time. So that way it's just like turning the page. I recommend you check it. Also, if you are reading just Japanese manga, I recommend that you click the option that says Japanese Mode so you can read from Right to Left like you would a Japanese manga.
Finally the last tab. Click it and it should look like this....
Just copy my settings to start out with, and then change them later if you want to. Or look through it and set it up how you like.
Now last to get this program to view manga in Japanese and English at the same time.
Take the chapter/volume that you want to look at and make sure they are both named in the same fashion. For example, my Japanese manga files are Pic01 Pic02 Pic03 and my English manga files are the same Pic01 Pic02 Pic03 To get the file like that use the better file renamer.
So select all the files that you want to edit. Right click and select the Better file renamer option that should be available. *if it's not available it means you need to restart for it to show*. With the Better file renamer program open you can now start to edit the names of the files. So, for example you just got a new manga chapter, and it's named Manga_V01_ch99_P01 and you want it to be just 01 then choose the area that says replace anywhere
type in the Manga_V01_ch99_P and have it be replaced with nothing in doing so you will be left with 01 which is what you wanted. Do the same thing for both versions so that they are the same now to avoid over writing these files when we put them in the same folder use the Better file renamer again. Select add to end put in a letter I choose a for my Japanese files and b for my English files. That way when you check out the files you will see the same page for each version. Also, for the files that are *joined* (they were once singular files but joined together in photoshop) just let them be like they are (no point editing the files so that they are joint together if they weren't when you got them.) and things should work out even. After you have them named appropriately stick them in the same folder and zip them up. Drag them over to the CDisplay program and drop it in to view the manga.
*CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD THE CHAPTER EXAMPLE*
There you have it. This is what I do when I check out manga, and I thought I would share this technique with you. Try out various things by yourself and you might find something that works even better. If you do have a good idea and wouldn't mind sharing it, then drop me a line in this post.
A quick FAQ before you ask questions... this guide was written on a computer with a resolution of 1400 X 1050 on Windows XP. I've never used a mac so I'm not sure how this method would work for it. If you know how to do something like this for mac or linux then feel free to post in here.
Thanks for taking the time out to read this.
Well this little page is to help you save time. What do we need to get started? well that's easy. To save time and effort in your future products I highly recommend you get the following three programs. Only one of witch requires you to purchase it although the demo is usable... Never the less, here they are:
Spike. A program created by my good friend Lord Riff Raff over at Pyrosoftware. With this little program you can have a text editor that is small and very helpful that can stay on top through out your edits so that you can just move the screen around and not worry about having to switch back and forth with just a normal text pad. It's a free program so post your thanks in here and I'll send him the message
.WON'T WORK IN VISTA
Cdisplay. With this program you can open up and view zipped images via drag and drop. But that's not all. I'll get into the technical stuff later, or you can jump to it by clicking this.
Finally the last program you will need is...
Better file renamer. With this program you can rename the files that you unzipped to something more usable when you want to do the dual E-J manga display technique. --- A free renaming program is called CkRename might work just as well.
Now after you download these programs install them and then lets continue.
Ok, I'm guessing everything is installed and you are ready to go. First off, the easier of the three programs, Spike.
Open up spike and you'll be welcomed with a nice.... welcome message. That pretty much teaches you how to use the program. It might be a little hard to see, so I have a picture showing where the stay on top area and the vertical or horizontal bar switcher area is located.
So follow the green arrow, click the area that is just an empty box and you will get an A that means that it's on top, click the same area again and it'll be just like a normal window(meaning it won't always stay on top) toggle the V or H to what you prefer, I like the Verticle view.
Cdisplay has three areas that we will want to edit. So open the program, look up at the top bar for something that says Options click that then go to Configure. You will now see a window like this....
Just check the boxes how I have it.
What I have checked makes it so that when you are viewing manga you can view two pages at a time. If you don't like that, just simply uncheck it. Also the other box has it so that the pages fit to the screen that you are looking at. If you do only one page at a time and it seems like the image you are looking at is bigger than the screen then try the Fit If Oversized option.
Next click on the tab that says Program settings (4th one across from the left). It should look like this....
I have it so that when in double page mode you can skip two pages at a time. So that way it's just like turning the page. I recommend you check it. Also, if you are reading just Japanese manga, I recommend that you click the option that says Japanese Mode so you can read from Right to Left like you would a Japanese manga.
Finally the last tab. Click it and it should look like this....
Just copy my settings to start out with, and then change them later if you want to. Or look through it and set it up how you like.
Now last to get this program to view manga in Japanese and English at the same time.
Take the chapter/volume that you want to look at and make sure they are both named in the same fashion. For example, my Japanese manga files are Pic01 Pic02 Pic03 and my English manga files are the same Pic01 Pic02 Pic03 To get the file like that use the better file renamer.
So select all the files that you want to edit. Right click and select the Better file renamer option that should be available. *if it's not available it means you need to restart for it to show*. With the Better file renamer program open you can now start to edit the names of the files. So, for example you just got a new manga chapter, and it's named Manga_V01_ch99_P01 and you want it to be just 01 then choose the area that says replace anywhere
type in the Manga_V01_ch99_P and have it be replaced with nothing in doing so you will be left with 01 which is what you wanted. Do the same thing for both versions so that they are the same now to avoid over writing these files when we put them in the same folder use the Better file renamer again. Select add to end put in a letter I choose a for my Japanese files and b for my English files. That way when you check out the files you will see the same page for each version. Also, for the files that are *joined* (they were once singular files but joined together in photoshop) just let them be like they are (no point editing the files so that they are joint together if they weren't when you got them.) and things should work out even. After you have them named appropriately stick them in the same folder and zip them up. Drag them over to the CDisplay program and drop it in to view the manga.
*CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD THE CHAPTER EXAMPLE*
There you have it. This is what I do when I check out manga, and I thought I would share this technique with you. Try out various things by yourself and you might find something that works even better. If you do have a good idea and wouldn't mind sharing it, then drop me a line in this post.
A quick FAQ before you ask questions... this guide was written on a computer with a resolution of 1400 X 1050 on Windows XP. I've never used a mac so I'm not sure how this method would work for it. If you know how to do something like this for mac or linux then feel free to post in here.
Thanks for taking the time out to read this.
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