The Furiganizer

Frequently Asked Questions
How to use the Furiganizer?
How do I 'furiganize' text? Navigate your browser to The Furiganizer. If you have never used the Furiganizer before, you will have to press the 'Start'-button. In the following screen paste the Japanese text you intend to furiganize into the large editable area. Then press the 'Furiganize'-button at the top or the bottom. After a short while you will see the furiganized version of your text. That's it.
How do I look up the meaning of a Japanese word? Furiganize the text that contains the word you want to look up as usual. Then click on the word that you want to look up. This will cause a context menu to pop up, and the Furiganizer starts looking up the meaning of the word. Once it has found it, it will display it as part of the context menu.
How do I tell the Furiganizer that I know a particular reading of a Kanji and don't need Furigana for it? Furiganize the text that contains the Kanji reading you want to mark known as usual. Then click on the Kanji reading that you want to mark known. This will cause a context menu to pop up. Select 'Hide Furigana for XXX' from the context menu. If you are a registered user of the Furiganizer, the latter will remember that you know this Kanji reading and will never display Furigana for this reading again, except you repeat this whole procedure and select 'Show Furigana for XXX' from the context menu. That's it.
How do I export furiganized text to Microsoft Word for further processing? Furiganize the text as usual. Then select 'Export to MS Word®' from the context menu. This will initiate the download of a MS Word file (XML 2003) called 'Furiganizer.xml.doc'. Open this file with Microsoft Word and you will see your furiganized text. (Make sure your version of Microsoft Word supports Japanese characters.) That's it.
General Questions
How do I best contact the Furiganizer? Please use the discussion section of our Facebook Fan Page or send an email to contact@furiganizer.com. All kinds of questions, remarks, hints, ideas and cheer-up letters are very welcome. Really. Please understand, however, that sometimes it can take quite a while before I get to reply to your email. This is not because I wouldn't cherish your feedback but because I'm probably busy with something else.
Can I request new features? Any kind of feedback is very welcome. Please be assured that I'm reading all feedback and consider all requested features. There is no guarantee, however, that I will find the time to implement all new features.
Do you make money with the Furiganizer? Certainly not! (But thanks to the Google AppEngine at least I don't have to pay for the server anymore. Thank you, Google!) The reason I put together this website is that I badly wanted a Furigana reading tool that omits Kanji I already know and couldn't find it on the net. Seeing that many other people also find the Furiganizer helpful came as another great motivation. A big thanks to you all!
I would like to improve the Furiganizer. May I? If you happen to be a motivated and talented Java developer with web experience, by all means, please, get in contact with me! I can't wait to talk with you about Google's Web Toolkit and AppEngine and how we can get you involved. Seriously!
Technical Questions
Can I register with the Furiganizer using my Google Account? From March 2010, the Furiganizer uses Google Accounts for authentification only. This has many advantages. It's a lot more stable, secure and, as I believe, convenient. It also reduces the number of emails you receive from the Furiganizer.
Why is the Furiganizer an English-only website? The previous version of the Furiganizer has shown that only very few people used the German and Japanese edition of the website. Besides, using the Furiganizer requires the knowledge of only a very few English words. And 'Furiganize' is not even an English word.
Can you integrate a Japanese-Other-Language dictionary? Unfortunately not. Integrating another language, even if free dictionaries should be available, is very time-consuming.
The Furiganizer keeps making the same furiganization mistake. Can you teach it to do better? Unfortunately, this is not so easy. If this is really an issue for you, could you provide me with a few examples of such reoccurring mistakes? I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, I suggest you mark the (wrong) reading as known so to prevent wrong Furigana from showing up. The fact that you were able to spot the mistake shows that you probably know the correct reading anyway.
I changed my email address. Can you transfer my known Kanji? Yes. Please send an email that contains your old email address from your new email address. The transfer might take a few days.
How do I delete my account? Please send an email from the email address for which you want to delete the account.