You said before it really doesn't expire. What do you mean by that?
Most of the time you'll lose some functions such as printing or limited
file size. If I stay with Unicode I am fine for tea terms but
occasionally I would like using native language packs.

Thanks,
Jim

niisonge wrote:
> Just download NJ Star Communicator, and you can convert into any of 21
> options. It's simple. And easy to use. But beware, some characters
> don't convert properly. It's a machine conversion. And it doesn't
> replace human conversion. For example, this software in GB mode only
> supports about 7 000 characters - or something like that. But in Big5
> mode, it supports 15 000 characters. So there are going to be many
> characters, that don't get converted, or are converted into another
> character, rendering the meaning of the text useless.
>
> And 15 000 is not a lot of characters. For common, every day Chinese
> language, it's fine. But for some scholarly or artistic work, I often
> can't find the character I am looking for in my software - because it's
> not in there. When it comes to Chinese, computers are still way behind,
> and woefully inadequate. But somehow, we still get by. Amazing isn't
> it? Chinese fonts are another big beef of mine. But anyway, save that
> for later.