While looking for a Chinese dictionary tool tip application for OS X, I found a Chinese module for the Dictionary app. By combining this with another cool feature to allow mouse-over pop ups from the built in dictionary, I thought I had a good solution.

Except the shortcut didn’t work. Basically, the shortcut “command-ctrl-D” to make the dictionary popup come up, doesn’t work at all. This problem seems to affect some preinstalled Leopard systems.

I ran across a few solutions, like making sure you were using the right key combination, making sure it was enabled, or making sure the dictionary app was in the applications folder. None of these worked for me.

After scrounging the internet forever, this simple solution worked for me.

I know the article doesn’t seem relevant, but it solved the problem, so maybe some random googler will find this helpful.

I should note, the tooltip for Chinese solution is still not ideal, but I haven’t found a free solution that works well, yet.

Update (2011-09-23)

This post is outdated, obviously. The newer version of the dictionary is better formatted so that it doesn’t usually require scrolling. Unfortunately, the new dictionary popup in Lion doesn’t work quite as well as it has in older versions. It often searches for the wrong word, and it has an irritating delay in popping up. I guess you can buy Wenlin if you don’t like it.