Surveys in Non-English Languages

SSI Web may be used for developing surveys in languages other than English (such as Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.). We assume that you have the ability to enter the survey text (using a keyboard or other input device) or that you have the translated text in a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation, or some other program that displays the text correctly (the characters display as they are intended to be shown in the survey).

When authoring surveys in SSI Web, you should ensure that the characters appearing in the input boxes in SSI Web's interface are the characters that respondents should see. (They may not be formatted with the correct size, color, or font, but they should be the correct character. If you see a "?", a box character, or just the wrong character(s), then the respondents are most likely not going to see the correct character either.) SSI Web uses a Unicode representation of the characters, and the STUDYNAMEqst.cgi file uses UTF-8 Unicode character encoding. You do not need to do anything additional to make SSI Web display your text correctly. Do NOT add a <META> tag specifying the character set. (SSI Web automatically includes a <META> tag indicating that the UTF-8 character set is being used.)

SSI Web supports double-byte characters in file names for graphics and also in files you name during export.

If you use Excel to open a .txt or .csv file that you have exported that contains double-byte characters, you should first open Excel, and then open the file using File | Open. This brings up a import wizard where you can specify to use Unicode encoding. You should have Excel 2003 or later to open files properly containing UTF-8 Unicode encoded characters.

Many languages work without any special considerations (such as Spanish, German, French, etc.). Just enter the characters or copy and paste them into SSI Web, and they will appear correctly. If the characters do not appear correctly, then try the procedures outlined below.

Test your survey carefully. Be careful to check the survey in Preview mode against your original Word document to ensure that the displayed text is correct. Be sure to test your survey on multiple browser types and using older versions of browsers since they all display HTML slightly different.

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Before You Begin

If you are conducting international surveys (especially with languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or others that use "double-byte" characters) we strongly recommend that you upgrade to Microsoft Windows 2000 or later and Microsoft Office XP (2002) or later. These programs offer a higher level of multilingual support, and many of the suggestions we'll make are not available in earlier Microsoft programs. These are also the versions we use at Sawtooth Software, so it is easier to assist you if you are using the same programs. Before you begin, we also encourage you to visit the Microsoft update sites for the respective products to make sure you are using the most recent patches.

First Steps
A. Add Windows support for the language in which you'll be working.

a.   Windows 2000 Users:

1.

Click Start + Settings + Control Panel + Regional Options.

2.

Under the General tab, check all of the boxes for Language settings for the system that you will need. (You may want to check all of them so that you can use any of the available languages later without having to install them.)

3.

Restart your computer when prompted. You may also be asked to provide your Windows installation disks. You may need to have administrative rights to make these changes.

b.   Windows XP Users:

1.

Click Start + Control Panel + Regional and Language Options.

2.

Under the Languages tab, check the two boxes for Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai) and Install files for East Asian languages.

3.

Restart your computer when prompted. You may also be asked to provide your Windows installation disks. You may need to have administrative rights to make these changes.

   
B. (This step is for users who will be copying from Microsoft Office into SSI Web.) If it is not already installed, add language support in Microsoft Office for the languages you'll be using. This may require you to download additional components from the Microsoft website. Click Start + Control Panel + Add or Remove Programs. Click Microsoft Office and click Change. When the setup dialog appears, select Add or Remove Features and then Next >. Select Office Shared Features – International Support and make sure that all font support is installed.