Use the phonetic guide function

1. Select the cells whose phonetic guides you want to show or hide.
2. On the Format menu, point to Phonetic Guide, and then click Show or Hide.

   When phonetic guides are displayed, the button next to Show or Hide is selected.

Note  Microsoft 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.

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

   Tip

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

2. Modify the phonetic guides. Do one of the following:

   Combine phonetic guides

   For example, when working in Japanese, the phonetic guides for would normally be split into and .

   1. To combine these into one string of , select the target parent character string .

   2. On the Format menu, point to Phonetic Guide, and then click Edit.

   Divide phonetic guides

   For example, when working in Japanese, the parent character string has a combined phonetic guide of .

   1. To divide these into and , select the target parent character string .

   2. On the Format menu, point to Phonetic Guide, and then click Edit.

      The existing (combined) phonetic guides will be set as the phonetic guides for the selected character string only, so they cannot be applied to any other character string. In this case, modify the phonetic guides for , and then add new phonetic guides to .

3. Do one of the following:

   • To confirm the modified phonetic guides, press ENTER twice.

   • To cancel the changes, press ESC twice.

1. Select the cells that contain the phonetic guides whose alignment, font, or type you want to change.
2. On the Format menu, point to Phonetic Guide, and then click Setting.
3. Do one or more of the following:
   • To change the font, click the Font tab, and then click the font you want in the Font box. To change the font size, click the size you want in the Size box.
   • To change the phonetic guide type, click the Setting tab, and then click the phonetic guide type you want under Type.
   • To change the alignment, click the Alignment tab, and then click the alignment you want to apply.

Tip