1972. Another medium-sized dictionary, the Xinhua Zidian, appeared with this index as well, but in the late 1990s the four-corner index disappeared from newer editions. Both works now use only the pinyin main entry and multi-door radical index systems that make it possible to look up a character with perhaps a wrong radical (i.e., characters appear redundantly under different radicals) and the number of strokes and variant forms are greatly reduced, and many more people are literate and capable of transcribing Chinese with pinyin. The use of stroke counting and radicals puts memorization of the character ahead of sheer speed in handling it. This method is more supportive of mass literacy than classical scholarship or processing and filing names or characters for the majority in China today. The four-corner method is ultimately for readers, researchers, editors and fileclerks, not for writers who seek a character that they know in speech or recitation. In China today, a new version of the excellent small Xin Sijiaohaoma Cidian, soft cover from Commercial Press, Beijing, has been available since the late 1970s, updated in several new editions and printings. It also uses the Third Revision. Current usage The main purpose of the original four-corner system today is in doing academic research or handling large numbers of characters, terms, index cards, or names. It is also used in computer entry, where a smaller list of items is created to browse from than with other systems. The Xinhua Zidian large type edition is available with a four-corner index for those whose failing eyesight precludes browsing and counting strokes. In China today, many famous KMT period reference books and collections with four-corner indexes are being reprinted for sale to scholars and those interested in Old Chinese language or historical studies. See also Context Chinese character encoding Chinese input methods for computers Uses CKC Chinese Input System, implementation of the four-corner method Chinese four-corner index, listing of many Chinese characters sorted by Four-Corner number Other structural encodings Chinese telegraph code, a 4-digit system SKIP, a structural system for Japanese kanji Cangjie method References External links Four Corner System for Searching Character Indexes and Computer Input explained MDBG online Chinese-English dictionary, a dictionary with four corner code support An overview of the four corner coding system VimIM 四角號碼中文輸入法 Graphical four-corner lookup for WWWJDIC. Han character input Index (publishing) 1926 introductions