Kiten supports more advanced searches than plain normal word searches.

Kiten can deinflect verbs you search for. To enable this, make sure Settings->Deinflect Verbs in Regular Search is checked. Kiten will then deinflect Japanese you search for that starts with a Kanji and ends with a Kana.

You can use Kiten's radical search dialog to search for Kanji with a combination of radicals and a certain stroke count. Choose Search->Radical Search... to open the radical search dialog.

To choose the radicals you want to be in your Kanji, select them from the middle listbox. To display possible radicals to select from this listbox with a certain number of strokes, choose this number of strokes from the spinbox just above the listbox. The radicals you choose will appear in the listbox to the right.

To choose how many strokes your Kanji should have, first check the Search by total strokes checkbox. (If you do not want to search by total strokes, uncheck this checkbox.) Then select the number of strokes from the spinbox on the left, under the checkbox. If you want the stroke count to be fuzzy by a certain number of strokes, select the margin of error from the spinbox to the right of the +/- label.

To perform the lookup, press the Look Up button.

To get a list of all Kanji in a certain grade, enter that grade in the main text-entry in the toolbar. Then choose Search->Grade to perform your search.

To get a list of all Kanji with a certain number of strokes, enter that number in the text-entry in the toolbar. Then choose Search->Strokes to perform your search.

If you are unable to input Japanese normally into KDE applications, you can use Kiten's Kana input system that is built in to the text-entry.

To start Kana input, press Shift+Space. Now inputted syllables will be transformed into Hiragana. If you type a syllable in capital letters, it will be transformed into Katakana instead. Press Shift+Space again to go back to regular input.

You can set global Kiten shortcuts that work everywhere on your desktop. Go to the Kiten configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings->Configure Kiten.... Select the Global Keys section of the dialog. Here you can set the keys for a global word search and a global Kanji search like in other KDE shortcut configuration panels.

You can print the result view by choosing Go->History. Kiten will add an informative header to the printout.

You can choose the font that Kiten uses in its result view and while printing. Go to the Kiten configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings->Configure Kiten.... Select the Font section of the dialog and select the font in the font-chooser.

There are three ways to add Kanji to the Learning List. To add the current Kanji (the one displayed in the view on the top) to your list, choose Edit->Add. To add all Kanji in the current grade to your list, choose Edit->Add All.

The current Kanji in the main Kiten window can also be added by choosing (in the main Kiten window) File->Add Kanji to Learning List.

To delete a Kanji on your Learning List, select it and choose Edit->Delete. You can also select a range of Kanji to delete by clicking in the list while holding down the Shift or Ctrl keys.

Learning Lists can be saved to files for easy storage.

To open a list, choose File->Open... and choose the existing list file in the file dialog.

To open a new list, choose File->Open....

To save a list, choose File->Save and choose the file to save your list to. To save the list under a different filename, choose File->Save As....

To print out your Learning List, choose File->Print.

The second tab of the Learn window is the Quiz tab. If you have at least two Kanji on your Learning List, this tab will be enabled. Click on the tab to switch to it.

To answer the question, click on the pushbutton that contains the answer that matches with the Kanji on the centered pushbutton.

If you do not know the answer, you can cheat by choosing Go->Cheat. This will set the correct pushbutton's focus.

If you choose the wrong answer, or cheat, your score for that Kanji will be decremented. If you choose the correct answer, your score will be incremented by two. Your score on the Kanji are shown on the very right-hand column of your Learning List (on the List tab of the Learn window).

You can change the way quizzing works in the Kiten configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings->Configure Kiten.... Go to the Learn section, and look at the Quizzing groupbox. Here you can change whether the Kanji, meaning, or reading is given for the clue, and what is given for you to guess on.