How to Get Pleco
Here’s a quick summary of everything you need to do to get started with Pleco on iPhone / iPod / iPad.
- Purchase Hardware. If you don’t already have an iPhone / iPod / iPad, you’ll need to purchase one. Our software requires iOS 4.3 or later, and will soon require iOS 6, so we recommend getting at least an iPhone 3GS, an iPad 2, or an iPod Touch 4th-generation (one with a Retina screen).
- Install Free Version. Once you have an iPhone / iPod / iPad, go to itunes.com/apps/PlecoChineseDictionary to download and install the free version of Pleco on your iPhone / iPod. (you can also search iTunes or App Store for “Pleco” and tap on the free “Pleco Chinese Dictionary” app)
- Purchase Add-ons. In Pleco, tap on the menu button at the bottom right corner of the screen and select the “Add-ons” tab to get to the add-on purchase screen. It has its own instruction manual page here if you need more information on how to use it. If you encounter difficulties downloading the add-on databases, you may be able to install them (though not purchase them) directly via USB using the instructions on this page.
- Start Using Pleco! See the tutorial if you need help finding your way around.
Free Version
The free version of Pleco includes a pretty good Chinese-English dictionary (the “Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary,” based on “A Chinese-English Dictionary” ed. by Wei Dongya), but no English-Chinese dictionary and no fullscreen handwriting / flashcard / document reader / audio / stroke order support. All of Pleco’s powerful search features (wildcards, full-text, etc) are supported, though, and searches are as fast / smooth as with any other dictionary. Additional free dictionaries like CC-CEDICT can be added without having to purchase any add-ons.
You can also try out Pleco’s fullscreen handwriting recognizer in the free version; to do this; go into the “Add-ons” tab, tap on “Fullscreen Handwriting Recognizer,” and tap on the “Try Handwriting Now” button towards the bottom of that page.
Replacing / Adding Additional Handhelds
If you lose or replace your iPhone / iPod / iPad with another device running iPhone OS, you can easily transfer over your Pleco add-on purchases without buying them again. If you originally bought Pleco on iOS, just tap on the “Restore Purchases” button at the bottom of the “Add-ons” tab to reactivate your software; if you originally bought on another platform, tap on “Enter Registration ID” under “Registration” in the “Settings” tab and use the same ID you were given before (you can retrieve it from My Orders if needed).
If you purchase an additional iPhone / iPod / iPad for yourself or someone else who shares your iTunes account (a family member, say), any add-ons purchased on your iPhone / iPod / iPad can be activated on that device too without purchasing them again. Register that iPhone / iPod as a new device (rather than a transfer), then tap on the “Restore Purchases” button at the bottom of the “Add-ons” tab to bring over those purchases to the new iPhone / iPod / iPad.
Our policy on transfers from the iPhone / iPod / iPad version of Pleco to other new platforms we might support in the future is yet to be determined; that’ll depend on the licenses we negotiate on those platforms.
You can be confident that any product you buy from us will be supported for years to come; we’ve been in business since 2000 and we won’t be going away anytime soon.
Upgrades
Our official upgrade policy is that all software updates within the current major version (2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc) are offered free of charge, and that major version upgrades (3.0, 4.0, 5.0) may or may not be free.
To date, we’ve never charged a fee for a version upgrade; we have customers who bought our software back in 2001 and are still using the latest version eight years later without ever having had to pay an upgrade fee. What we prefer to do instead is to release the basic software upgrade for free but charge extra for some new features (particularly those that require us to pay royalties or license fees).
Tech Support
We offer lifetime free e-mail technical support with all purchases; just contact us and we’ll be delighted to help you.
We do not currently offer telephone support; we’re not big enough to have a dedicated 24-hour line, and if we offered telephone support during business hours it wouldn’t do much good for the plurality of our customers who live outside the US, so we’ve decided it’s best to forego telephone support altogether for now at least. We’re very quick to answer emails, though; most messages are responded to within half a day, many within a few hours, and we don’t stop answering email on weekends.