Methods to write Pinyin in Microsoft Office
If you’re studying any language that has accents, chances are you’ll need to find a way to remember it. Then, how would you write the accents on (digital) notes and/or assessments?
Being a Mac user for many years, I spent a while scratching my head on how the heck do I write pinyin on Windows 10. Macbook had an Extended Keyboard, but I can't find an equal for Windows without going to a third party. Asking Microsoft on Twitter, I now have a better idea of how I could type the tones.
A. install the ENG US international keyboard:
This will allow you to write accents that you would find in French, like the accents é, à, ô, etc. However, it wouldn't allow for the flat tone or the third tone.
B. Skip all the fancy accents and make it simple
Since there are 4 tones in the pinyin, an easy alternative is to write the tone number after the letters.
For example:
商场 becomes shang1 chang3
火车 becomes huo3che1
(The spacing is optional)
C. Unicode Character Code, ALT + X:
This approach is a little harder since it would require you to remember the 4-character code for each individual letter with a specific accent.
From what I could tell, upper or lower case doesn’t matter for the code, but it’s better to type the accented vowel first, then the other characters in the word. NOTE: This only works for Microsoft Office (Powerpoint/Excel/Word...)
To get started:
Character (UNICODE Character Code)
ā (0101) | á (00E1) | ǎ (01CE) | à (00E0)
ō (014D) | ó (00F3) | ǒ (01D2) | ò (00F2)
ī (012B) | í (00ED) | ǐ (01D0) | ì (00EC)
ē (0113) | é (00E9) | ě (011B) | è (00E8)
ū (016B) | ú (00FA) | ǔ (01D4) | ù (00F9)
How do you guys write Pinyin on your computer?
What do you think of the Unicode method?