There was some room for improvement with the last posting I did on how to setup Windows to type pīnyīn. There were four problems with the last keyboard layout installer I found (three if you are in the UK).
First, the original keyboard layout was UK based. If you were using a US keyboard, when you switched to the pīnyīn layout you gained the pīnyīn tone marks, but some keys switched and you lost other keys (for example you would lose the dollar sign and gain the British pound sign).
Second, there was no way to type a ü (at least not that I could find).
Third, the dead keys became literally dead so you could never use those keys for what they had on them. Meaning, you couldn’t type [, ], \, or ‘.
And last, I didn’t make the layout so I couldn’t tweak it or release the source – oh the humanity :)
I decided to just make my own keyboard layout to better support a US style keyboard, add in the ü, and make the “dead keys” still usable. I also tried to make it usable to the point where you don’t have to switch between keyboard layouts to use it. Meaning you should be able to just use this layout all the time.
You can download the layout with the installer. And if you’re savvy, you can download the source. The source is not really source code – it’s a project file that you can open and tweak with the following Microsoft program: Keyboard Layout Creator.
How to install the layout
If you would like to use the keyboard layout, download this file and follow the steps in this movie:
I can’t really support the software in general, but if you have questions you can post them here.
How to use the layout
What the keyboard layout does is it adds the ability to type tone marks, and the ability to type a ü. The following keys are used to type the tone marks and the ü:
| Key(s): | [ | ] | ‘ | \ | ctrl+alt+u |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Makes: | ā | á | ǎ | à | ü |
One way to remember the layout is to put stickers on the keyboard like I did with my test computer:
How you actually make the tone marks is by doing the following: you hit the tone mark key before the letter that should have the tone mark. For example, you could type Du then to make ì, you type the \ key then the i key. Another example: to make ě you would press the ‘ key, and then the e key.
The only letters that will accept tone marks are a, o, e, i, u and ü.
To type the letter ü, you press and hold the ctrl key, and while still holding down the ctrl key press the alt key. Now that you are holding down both ctrl and alt, press the u key. If you want to add tone marks to ü, you do the same thing as “normal” letters. You’d press the ‘ key then ctrl+alt+u to make the ǚ (as in nǚ).
If you want to type the character the tone key was actually designed for (for example you want to type a [), you do the following: press that key, then press the space bar. So, for another example press \ then the space bar, and you will make the character \.
Update 2008年6月20日:
For people having problems with typing ü, I have gotten a report that it only works when "us[ing] the ctrl from the left of the space bar and the alt key from the right of the spacebar” on a Dell Latitude notebook.
If you didn’t see it in the comments below, there is a newer version of this which supports capital letter tone marks: http://robrohan.com/2007/10/19/typing-pinyin-on-windows-part-capital-letter-tones/
I have had a few emails from people asking what license this is under and / or if they can redistribute it to their friends / classmates / students. All are fine with me, I consider this to be in the public domain.
Hey Rob Rohan,
I’m a student who is currently working on xml databases and accessing them from Java applications amongst other things. I am very interested in your work that you have done with ashpool. I’ve only managed to find version 0.3.5, would you happen to have version 0.3.6b or 0.3.6b2 (the more updated ones) lying around?
Thanks, Vince
What an incredibly easy install for someone who’s not computer savvy like me (the you tube video helped too). Thanks!
ester
To do a “ü” just press “v”.
For clues for the rest – look at the double pinyin table, switch to double-pinyin mode, then see what single character is dumped out… then you can switch back to single pinyin mode and just use the single character.
Works great…thanks!
Thank you for the great software! I was able to type PinYin with tones. However, I can’t type “ü” by ctrl+alt+u. Is there any other way to do it?
Thanks
Lulu
Fēicháng gănxiè nín. Zhèige dùi jiǔyùefēn yào kāishǐ jiào Pīnyīn de wŏ tài yŏu yòng le!
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谢谢
Thanks Rob for the keyboard. However, like Lulu mentions above, I also can’t get the u with the umlaut on it using the ctrl+alt+u. Nor can I get the little square. The other tone marks work fine. Anybody got any ideas? I am using XP and msword 2002.
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Just FYI, I updated the layout to support Capital letters and I added ctrl+alt+v to mimic ctrl+alt+u to create ü. You can download the new layout from this post:
http://robrohan.com/2007/10/19/typing-pinyin-on-windows-part-capital-letter-tones/
小罗你好: 其实没有必要每次输入拼音的时候都是”拼音字母”,例如:拼音(pīnyīn) 可以直接英文字母就可以了 Pinyin, ü 在中文输入法内 使用 V 代替,正好是26个字母…
Hi, would just like to thank you for this piece of brilliance, im a uni student majoring in chinese and this is by far the best solution i’ve found so far. You deserve a medal, seriously.
Thanks
Lossanarch: 那里那里。
Please check if the download link is still valid. The zip file I downloaded is less than 4 kb, and cannot be opened.
Hi Way:
I just tried downloading both the program and the source code, and both worked ok. If you still have trouble, email me and I will send the file to you: rob-rohan-@-gmail-.-com (remove all the dashes)
小赵:
欢迎光临！对不起，我的汉语不太好。
因为我要to type英语和拼音at the same time所以我用这个软件。我要V键为V，可是我也要ü键。
I had a gentleman email me with a problem installing this on to a Windows Server 2008 64bit . The installer version of this keyboard layout doesn’t jive with with windows 64bit. If you are trying to install it on a 64 bit system, download the Microsoft keyboard layout creator version 1.4, and download the “source” file for this layout (linked in the article). Create a new installer, run the installer and you should be good to go.
Again, this only applies to 64bit versions of windows, and if you don’t know what that means, you most likely don’t have a 64 bit version :) (as of 2008 that is)
I’ve been ‘ploughing’ through the internet for hours until I found this incredibly convenient layout! Thank you very much for sharing.
Spread the word…:)