Use furigana phonetic guides with japanese text

Some of the content in this topic may not be applicable to some languages.

In Excel, you can choose between three types of phonetic guides: full-width katakana, half-width katakana, and hiragana. You can change the font style, font size, and alignment of phonetic guides. You can modify phonetic guides, and you can add phonetic guides to Japanese data that has been entered in a cell. The phonetic character string that was used to enter the Japanese data is used to apply phonetic guides. When you sort sheet data, Japanese data is sorted by its phonetic guides by default. If the correct phonetic guides have been used on characters that use them, Japanese terms are sorted in the same order as they would occur in a Japanese dictionary. If the phonetic guides are not entered correctly, make the necessary corrections.

When you display phonetic guides in the Japanese version of Excel and enter kanji (Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese language), Excel automatically adds the phonetic symbols to the guides.

Important: If you don't see Display phonetic characters to clairify pronunciation under Font on the Home tab, you must turn on Japanese language features. To learn more, see Change the language Office uses in its menus and proofing tools.

Do any of the following:

Change phonetic guide font or type

1. Select the cells that contain the phonetic guides whose font or type you want to change.

2. On the Home tab, under Font, click Display phonetic characters to clarify pronunication  , and then click Settings.

3. Do any of the following:

To	Do this
Change the font	Click the Font tab, and then in the Font box, click the font that you want.
Change the font size	Click the Font tab, and then in the Size box, click the font size that you want.
Change the phonetic guide type	Click the Setting tab, and then under Type, click the phonetic guide type that you want.

Tip: You can apply formatting (such as bold or italic formatting), colors, underlining, or character effects to phonetic guides on the Font tab.

Modify phonetic guides

1. Select the cell that contains the text with the phonetic guides that you want to change.

2. On the Home tab, under Font, click Display phonetic characters to clarify pronunication , and then click Show Phonetic Fields.

3. Double-click the cell that contains the phonetic guides that you want to modify, and then click the phonetic guides.

4. Modify the phonetic guides.

5. To confirm the modified phonetic guides, press RETURN twice.

   To cancel the changes, press ESC twice.

   Notes: 

   • To use the keyboard to move the cursor to the phonetic guides, press OPTION + SHIFT + UP ARROW . To return to the parent string that the phonetic guides apply to, press OPTION + SHIFT + DOWN ARROW . The color of the parent character string changes while the phonetic guides are being modified.

   • If the displayed phonetic guides are incorrect, you can select the cell that shows the incorrect phonetic guides and change it by using the same method you use to enter a character string. On the Home tab, under Font, click Phonetic, and then click Edit.

Change phonetic guide alignment

The default alignment of phonetic guides is left alignment (that is, placed along the left edge of the kanji to which the phonetic guides apply). You can change the alignment to no alignment (all phonetic guides are combined and aligned along the left edge of the cell), center alignment (centered against the kanji to which the guides apply), or distributed alignment (set with equal spacing against both edges of the kanji to which the guides apply).

1. Select the cells that contain the phonetic guides whose alignment you want to change.

2. On the Home tab, under Font, click Display phonetic characters to clarify pronunication  , and then click Settings.

3. On the Setting tab, under Alignment, click the alignment that you want to apply.

Show or hide phonetic guides

1. Select the cells that contain the phonetic guides that you want to show or hide.

2. On the Home tab, under Font, click Display phonetic characters to clarify pronunication , and then click Show Phonetic Fields.

   When phonetic guides are displayed, the check mark next to Show Phonetic Fields is visible. To hide phonetic guides, clear the check mark.

   Note: Excel automatically adds phonetic symbols only to new data entered in the Japanese version of Excel. If you open files that were created in earlier versions of Excel or in other programs, phonetic symbols are not generated automatically.

See also

Change the language Office uses in its menus and proofing tools