I had to update my Google AdSense details today to
receive payment to my bank account in Japan (yes I still use AdSense on
some sites). In the box where I need to enter my name as it appears on
the bank account, it would only accept half width katakana.
No problem, I thought, until I input the normal full width katakana
as usual and then couldn’t find any way to convert it to half width!
A few spins of the Google Wheel and I found some information on whatdoiknow.org’s blog:
To use the system-wide character palette, open you System
Preferences. Then click on International. Then chose the “Input Menu”
tab at the far right. In the list of keyboard languages should be an
item named “Character Palette.” Turn it on by checking the box. Close
your preferences. At the top menu of the OS, right next to your Help
option, will be the Character Palette icon. Click on it and select “Show
Character Palette.” When you find the character you need, double click
on it, and the OS will insert it into whatever application you are
currently using.
To get a Japanese palette, follow the same steps as above, but enable
the “Show Japanese Kana Palette” option. Then you can switch to
katakana, with a tick box to enable half width katakana.
It still takes a bit of fiddling, and I’m sure there is a built in
function in OS X to enable you to type directly in half width katakana,
but I couldn’t find it.
If you know of a better way, please let me know 😀
