Ordering Information

How to Get Pleco

Here's a quick summary of everything you need to do to get started with Pleco on iPhone / iPod.

1. Purchase Hardware. If you don't already have an iPhone / iPod Touch, you'll need to purchase one. Every iPhone / iPod Touch model released so far should work with Pleco, but some older devices will need to be updated to the new iPhone OS version 3.0 or later; this upgrade is free for iPhones (just sync your phone with iTunes), with iPods you can update to the latest iPhone OS version for $5 on Apple's website.
2. Install Basic Version. Once you have an iPhone / iPod Touch, go to itunes.com/apps/PlecoChineseDictionary to download and install the free basic 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)
3. Register Pleco. Before you can upgrade / purchase add-ons for your new copy of Pleco, you'll need to register it. See "Registering" in the Basic Tutorial for instructions - in Pleco, tap on the menu button at the bottom right corner of the screen, tap on the "Settings" tab, and tap on "Not Registered" under "Registration" to get to the registration screen.
4. Purchase Add-ons. tap on that same menu button and select the "Add-ons" tab to get the add-on purchase screen. It has its own instruction manual page here if you need more information on how to use it.
5. Start Using Pleco! See the tutorial if you need help finding your way around.

Basic Version

The free basic 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 / 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 basic 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 Touch with another device running iPhone OS, you can easily transfer over your Pleco add-on purchases without buying them again; just use the "Transfer Registration" option in the Registration screen for that.

If you purchase an additional iPhone / iPod for yourself or someone else who shares your iTunes account (a family member, say), any add-ons purchased on your iPhone / iPod 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 iTunes Purchases" button in Registration to bring over those purchases to the new iPhone / iPod.

Our policy on transfers from the iPhone / iPod Touch 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.

US Government Purchasers

Our products are offered to the US government (institutional purchases only) under GSA contract number GS-35F-0215T; contact us at sales@pleco.com if you'd like to discuss placing an order with us. (we're still working to get our iPhone / iPod software added to our GSA pricelist)