ATOK (エイトック /ˈeitokku/ or /ˈeɪtɔːk/) is a Japanese input method editor (IME) produced by JustSystems, a Japanese software company. ATOK is an IME with roots from KTIS (

Kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

Transfer Input System) come with JS-WORD, the Japanese word processor software for PC-100 in 1983, but it now supports a variety of platforms including

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

, and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

. Once ATOK meant'' Automatic Transfer Of Kana-kanji''. Now, it means '' Advanced Technology Of Kana-kanji Transfer''. It is occasionally taken to stand for '' Awa- TOKushima'', site of the headquarters of JustSystems, or ''Alphabet TO Kanji.''

Functions

Functions vary between versions for different platforms, and the following list is not exhaustive. * Search

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

from phonetic input - both using

romaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...

keyboard and

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

keyboard. * Search kanji by

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

. * Drawing pad for handwriting recognition. * Reverse retrieval of phonetic input - both to kunyomi and onyomi. * Text templates for standard phrases, address labels and Japanese emoticons. * Real time auto-completion of text - both Japanese and English. (Example: type "fun" and you immediately get a list of words starting with "fun": function, fun, fund, funk...). * Character information, JIS and

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

codes, pronunciations, related characters. * Japanese date formats. * Character palette for input of special symbols, accented Latin, Russian, etc. * Customizable input keys and keyboard shortcuts for the different functions.

Versions

As of April 2019, the latest version for Windows is 31.1.6; for macOS, 31.0.3; for iOS, 1.6.2; and for Android, 1.8.15. They are available via the ATOK Passport subscription and an annual subscription which comes with Ichitaro.

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

, OS/2, Palm OS,

Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...

, and Windows CE are no longer supported. KTIS and ATOK was originally a component of JustSystems' word processor software. Ichitaro released in 1985 allowed the use of ATOK 4 in other MS-DOS applications of the PC-98 platform. ATOK 7 was bundled with Ichitaro 4, and was available as a standalone product in 1992. In DOS era, ATOK was spreading with Ichitaro despite competition from VJE, Matsutake, and some other software.

Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

, the first retail version of Japanese Windows, bundled the Microsoft IME (MS-IME) input method. MS-IME 97 contained notable improvements, and was bundled with a new retail box of

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

and Office 97. The difference between ATOK and MS-IME went smaller. In 2008, JustSystems began a subscription service, ATOK Passport. ATOK 2017 was the last version to be physically shipped as boxed software.

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

chose ATOK as their input method when running under the JP locale in

Solaris 10 Solaris is a proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. After the Acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, Sun acquisition by Oracle in 2010, it was renamed Oracle Solaris. So ...

and above, enhancing Sun's already strong Japanese language support. For embedded systems, JustSystems has developed +ATOK. Some Japanese

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

s, PDAs,

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...

s ( PSP,

PS3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...

and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...

automotive navigation system An automotive navigation system is part of the automobile controls or a third party add-on used to find direction in an automobile. It typically uses a satellite navigation device to get its position data which is then correlated to a position on ...

s come with +ATOK.

References

External links

* {{Input method Japanese writing system Japanese-language computing Han character input Linux text editors Solaris software Unix text editors

Functions

Versions

See also

References

External links