Taiwan and Hong Kong both use Traditional Chinese, but they do not share every character or every word. Saying a file is "Traditional" is like saying a document is "English." It tells you the alphabet family, not whether the reader is in London or New York. Software that offers only one Traditional switch will be wrong for someone, somewhere.
The difference is not hostility between the two places. It is two standards that grew from shared older characters, then settled different preferences in education, government, newspapers and computing. If you convert a Simplified file for "Chinese readers outside mainland China," you still have to pick a target.
Why two Traditional standards exist
After the mid-twentieth century, mainland China promoted Simplified characters. Taiwan kept Traditional characters as the public written standard for Mandarin education. Hong Kong and Macau also kept Traditional characters, while daily speech stayed largely Cantonese.
Those communities did not freeze the same dictionary on the same day. Teachers, publishers and later the Unicode and font industries encoded slightly different preferred glyphs. Input methods diverged too. Taiwan commonly teaches Zhuyin (bopomofo) alongside characters. Hong Kong users often type with Cantonese romanization, stroke methods, or Mandarin Pinyin depending on the person. None of that changes the fact that the printed page is Traditional. It does change which shape a spellchecker or converter treats as default.
Macau is closer to Hong Kong in written practice than to Taiwan, but a government form in Macau can still have its own wording. If you are converting for an official audience, ask for the house standard.
Characters
Some everyday words have different preferred glyphs. A converter aimed at Taiwan may pick 裡 where a Hong Kong setting prefers 裏. 著 and 着, 為 and 爲, and a number of less common variants show the same pattern. These are not random typos. They are regional standards.
A reader from the other city will usually still understand the word. A publisher, a school, or a government portal may still reject the unexpected shape. That is why OpenCC exposes Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate targets instead of one Traditional bucket.
If you already have Traditional text and only need to move it toward one of those standards, use Traditional to Traditional (Taiwan) or Traditional to Traditional (Hong Kong). That is normalization, not simplification.
Vocabulary
Taiwan Mandarin writing and Hong Kong written Chinese also differ in words, especially for government, transport, software and daily life.
A few well-known pairs, shown here as a teaching sample rather than a complete glossary:
| Topic | Taiwan (typical) | Hong Kong (typical) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software | 軟體 | 軟件 | Same idea, different established noun |
| Information | 資訊 | 資訊 / 信息 | Hong Kong writing may also follow other house styles |
| Taxi | 計程車 | 的士 | Hong Kong uses a Cantonese-influenced loanword |
| Bus | 公車 | 巴士 | Both are widely understood; local text picks one |
| Pineapple | 鳳梨 | 菠蘿 | A classic regional vocabulary split |
OpenCC "with phrases" types try to swap some of those terms when you convert from Simplified. They will not localize an entire article into Cantonese written style, and they will not make a Taiwan editorial sound like a Hong Kong column. Phrase tables are a head start for UI strings and ordinary prose. They are not a local writer.
Hong Kong formal writing can look quite close to standard written Chinese. Hong Kong informal writing can include Cantonese grammar and particles that a Taiwan reader has to decode. A character converter does not add or remove those particles. If your source is spoken-style Cantonese written in Traditional characters, converting it to Taiwan Traditional still leaves it looking like Cantonese.
What to choose in this converter
- Taiwan audience: Simplified to Traditional (Taiwan), or Taiwan with phrases if you also want some wording swapped.
- Hong Kong audience: Simplified to Traditional (Hong Kong). In the other direction, Traditional (Hong Kong) to Simplified.
- Unknown Traditional source: generic Traditional to Simplified, then ask a reader from the intended city to skim it.
The full list of options is in OpenCC conversion types. You can compare outputs side by side in the text converter with the same paragraph and two different targets. That comparison teaches more than a chart, because you will see which words actually move.
How to decide when you are unsure
- Look at the delivery address, school system, or app store listing.
- Look at existing files from the same client. Match their standard instead of inventing a third one.
- For overseas communities, ask which newspaper or church bulletin they already read. Many North American communities historically used Traditional forms closer to older Hong Kong or Taiwan practice, not a new hybrid.
- For software, ship two Traditional locales if you can:
zh-TWandzh-HK. One Traditional resource file is a compromise, not a standard.
After conversion, proofread with a reader of that locale if the text is public. Proofreading is not optional for names of stations, ministries and laws, because those terms are exactly where the two standards diverge.
Frequently asked questions
Can Taiwan and Hong Kong readers understand each other's writing? Usually yes for news and school prose. They still notice "wrong" characters and local words, the way American and British readers notice color and colour.
Is Macau the same as Hong Kong? Close enough for many character choices, not a reason to ignore a client's specified standard.
Should I convert Taiwan Traditional to Hong Kong Traditional before sending a file to Hong Kong? If the file will be published as Hong Kong Chinese, yes, use the Hong Kong target or a human editor. If it is an internal draft, ask the recipient.
Do phrase options turn the text into Cantonese? No. They swap some regional words. They do not rewrite grammar.
Why does my font look different after I pick Hong Kong? Some fonts include region-specific glyph variants. The code point may stay the same while the drawn shape changes. See Chinese fonts and Unicode.