# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Non English Excel >  >  Chinese characters cannot be typed into Excel?

## RyanD

Hi, 

I work in an internal IT helpdesk and one of our users is having an issue with his Microsoft Excel whereby he cannot type Chinese characters directly into it. I don't know much about using different languages inside Office but the way I understand it is that he uses a keyboard shortcut which brings up a window that he types into, and it shows several translations in Chinese in this window. When he chooses a translation the characters are not inputted into Excel, the cell just remains blank. However he can copy and paste characters from another Office program into Excel and that will display perfectly. 

This issue seems to be localized to Excel as he can use the Chinese characters on Outlook. Word and PowerPoint. Has anyone encountered this  before or have any info that might be of use to me?

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## markathenan

Not sure if I have caught your point, to my knowledge, if Chinese characters work perfectly on your client's other MS program, it should be all right for excel as well. I think the problem is the translation program led by the keyboard shortcut, why didn't your client copy the text from the window and paste it into excel cells.

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## RyanD

Sorry I never updated this. Copying and pasting from the window was also not possible. It turns out however that the additional language is not supported by Excel 2013, 2010 is fine but not 2013.

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## JaydenK

Do you know if the user has the language pack installed?

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## RyanD

He had the Windows Chinese IME installed. The list of programs that are applicable with this method on the Microsoft Support site does not specify Excel 2013, however it specifies the rest of Office.

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## JaydenK

Right, I was going to say that the language pack for Excel 2013 doesn't seem to be fully developed at this point so the Chinese characters may not be displayed properly. The google pinyin input seems to work fine though if the user wants to give that a try.

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## RyanD

Thanks I'll give that a go. I would download it now to give it a test but I don't speak Chinese so can't find a link! I'll let you know how it goes.

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## JaydenK

Here's the link to what I was talking about**: http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/

Once you download it, I believe the installation should be in English...hope it helps a bit.

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## RyanD

Yeah I found it but the installation is in Chinese unfortunately. I'll send the link to the client tomorrow and he'll be thrilled if it works for him. Thanks again.

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## RyanD

Still no joy unfortunately.

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## RyanD

He has also told me that he is currently using QQ pinyin which also doesn't work to type into Excel

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## markathenan

I found a link in Chinese which may help your client out. Actually there is no difference between qq pinyin and google pinyin, or even sogou pinyin. The failure of typing Chinese might be caused by a program/software conflict from programs installed as a package by the computer company. For example, the poster cited that when he uninstalled the program called "pdf complete" brought by HP computer, then the qq pinyin he used works perfectly with the Excel 2013. Therefore, you could suggest your client to locate the unnecessary programs installed initially, and give that a try.

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## RyanD

Wow I'm stunned. That is spot on, all sorted now. Thanks a lot for your help! Had this issue for ages! 

Thanks again

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## markathenan

I am surpriseds too, but just curious which program finally causes the problem.

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## RyanD

It was the same HP PDF Complete crapware that comes installed on the HP Pro SFF

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## markathenan

JACKPOT, I should have bought lottery yesterday..

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