Formatted Chinese

Romanize and translate Chinese text without leaving your notes. Select some text, run a command, and get it back as a formatted study layout — characters with Jyutping, Yale, or pinyin, and a translation alongside.

Built for Cantonese learners first. Most romanization tools are Mandarin-only, and the ones that handle Jyutping don't translate or lay anything out. Mandarin is supported too.

What it does

• Format selection — replaces the selected text with the formatted result
• Format entire note — does the same for the whole note
• Romanization: Jyutping, Yale, Yale (tone numbers), or pinyin
• Layouts: stacked lines, vertical split, horizontal split, three-section, translation only
• Targets: English, Chinese (Traditional / Simplified / Hong Kong), Italian, Japanese, and more
• Toggles for separators, character alignment, word compounds, and source/translation order

Requirements and network use

This plugin is a client for a hosted service. It does not romanize or translate anything locally.

• An account is required. Formatting needs an API key from formattedchinese.com/account. Sign-up is free.
• Your text is sent over the network. When you run a command, the selected text — or the entire note — is sent to formattedchinese.com to be translated and romanized, and the result is sent back. Nothing is sent until you run a command, and no other note content is read.
• Translation runs on the operator's own hardware, not a third-party AI provider.
• Google Translate fallback asks first. If a translation fails, it can be retried through Google Translate — which means sending that text to Google. By default the plugin asks before doing so, the same as the website, and dismissing the prompt declines. You can set Google Translate fallback to always or never in settings.
• Free tier limits apply. Trial accounts get one API key and a limited number of jobs per day. Higher limits require a paid account.
• Text is processed to produce your result and is not stored for any other purpose. See the privacy policy and terms.

Setup

1. Install and enable the plugin.
2. Create a free account at formattedchinese.com and generate an API key from your account page.
3. Open Settings → Formatted Chinese and paste the key.
4. Pick your default target language, romanization, and layout.

Usage

Open the command palette and run:

Defaults come from settings, so day to day it's select, run, done.

Installing before it's in the community directory

Until the plugin is listed, install it manually or with BRAT pointed at formattedchinese/formatted-chinese-obsidian.

Manual install — copy main.js and manifest.json from the latest release into:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/formatted-chinese/

Then enable Formatted Chinese under Settings → Community plugins.

Building from source

npm install
npm run build

Support

Bugs and feature requests: open an issue. If you find the tool useful, you can support the server costs on Ko-fi.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.