Typing in Pinyin w/tone marks

Great - thanks, and hopefully in a Group like this the information it'll be a little "stickier" and easier to find for future users.

Extra details on choosing U.S. Extended, cut and pasted from this thread:

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If I go into System Preferences / International / Input Menu, I then go way down to U.S. Extended - an American flag with a little "U" underneath it. Select that and then it'll be a choice for your input menus, in the upper right corner (where the flag usually is, beside the time on my system).

I can't recall if I ever had to install that input method, or if it came with the computer. You can see a description with visual aids here.

You can also see more detail about the keystrokes here.

So now my system is usually set to toggle between U.S. extended (for normal use and pinyin) and QIM Sogou Dict (which I bought about a month back - great program, but I'm still confused by a couple of things). Oh, and just in case you didn't know, Command + Space can toggle back and forth between the current and the most recent input menu.

If you'd like to be able to type the pinyin by using numbers try installying the Biaoyin2 input method.

I've found it easier to remember than the keystrokes for the tones in the U.S. Extended. It's not perfect, in that you can't type multiple words at a time, but I find it very useful.

The Chinese Mac site is very useful for all things well, Chinese and Mac: http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/

Thanks, Billgloveruk.

This is almost as slick as Wenlin's pinyin input. The great thing about both is that the tone mark is automatically put over the correct vowel, important in words like shéi or suì where one can't remember the rules. Unlike Wenlin, though, one has to switch to another input method if one wants to type English, say. Just a command+spacebar however.

One thing to note: restart is required after dropping the biaoyin.cin file into the Library/Input Methods folder.

Danger Will Robinson! This biaoyin.cin file really hosed my system (10.5.1). My other input methods disappeared from my menu. Luckily, I found a fix.

First, remove the biaoyin.cin file

Then, go into System/Library/Caches/  and delete these files:

com.apple.IntlDataCache.le 
com.apple.IntlDataCache.le.kbdx 
com.apple.IntlDataCache.le.sbdl 
com.apple.IntlDataCache.le.tecx 

Then reboot.

Anyone else have similar issues?

You can create your own favourites list of characters using alt-command-T. I have the vowels with each of the tone marks.

This is also quite useful http://www.foolsworkshop.com/ptou/ you just type the number bi3ru2 shou1 zhe4 yang4 paste it into the window and it outputs this: bǐrú shōu zhè yàng Less fiddly for long bits of text than keyboard shortcuts and no dodgy software to install

I am a Mac user and recently installed the CEDICT dictionary which integrates into the Apple Dictionary and provides Chinese character to english look ups. 

To access the dictionary you can set a keyboard shortcut, I use Ctrl-D. If you go to System Prefs-> International, click on the Keyboard Shortcuts button near the bottom of the window, then click the small plus button bottom left of shortcut list. Leave the default All Applications, for Menu Title: you should type Look Up in Dictionary , type this exactly and then enter your keyboard shortcut:, e.g. ^D. Once this is done and you have installed the CEDICT dictionary you will be able to select chinese characters in safari for example, maybe some that a CPODer has used then hit ^D and the dictionary will open showing the definition for the selected character(s).

Google CEDICT for apple dictionary to find the dictionary file. You should unarchive into Library:Dictionaries and make sure the folder maintains a .dictionary extension.

If you need any more instructions please message me.

I have found that I can now do translations CHinese to English and learn new characters as well as reinforce character recognition for those I already know.

great find javcau, here is a link to Cedict for Apple