Easy Pinyin w/tone marks

This method is better than sogou, google or microsoft pinyin's soft keyboard and does not require an internet connection. It can be used in all Windows programs.

1) http://pinyinput.sourceforge.net/

2) Now, click on “Latest version (1.1.0) - Compatible with 32- and 64-bit Windows XP/Vista/7” --- the words "latest version" is the actual link to click on.

3) Then, find the file on your computer. Right click on the file and click "run as administrator".

4) Now in the drop down box where it should say PRC 什么的。In order for the Pinyinput program to function correctly in Microsoft Word, this country setting must be changed to English. Pick whatever English (country) you have the option of. Mine let me pick English (Australia).

5) The program is installed now but not ready to use. To do so, IN WINDOWS 7 go to "start- control panel- change keyboards or other input methods- change keyboards-" if you have any other compatible version of Windows then the only difference will be in the steps required to open the "change keyboards or other input methods" dialog box. I do not know offhand exactly how to get there. If anyone has problems let me know and I can check for you. >>>>>>>>>>continuing

6) Ok, now check in the box on the left for the countries you need. If you also picked English then you should look for English (whatever country you could pick. Maybe it is Australia, just like mine).

7) Under "keyboard" look for it to list "Pinyinput". If it is there then you are done! I recommend going to the "advanced key settings" tab on the top of this "Text services and input languages" box and setting a hot key in order to make switching to Pinyinput faster.

If Pinyinput is NOT LISTED then go to step 8

Underneath English (the country Pinyinput listed when it was installing. In my case it was Australia), underneath there click on "Keyboard" and then click on "add" on the right side of the box. In the new box that pops up, find the "English - x country" and then click on the plus to expand your choices. Next click on the + sign next to "keyboard" if it is not expanded already.

9) Check the box next to pinyinput and click ok! Again I recommend setting a hotkey for pinyinput so you can switch to it without having to use the mouse to click on the bottom right corner of the screen in Windows. It is just faster that is all!

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10) I personally live in the US and use "English- USA" because I live in the USA... BUT for whatever reason (probably because I have Korea selected as my system locale for a certain game popular in Korea to display properly) when I installed Pinyinput I couldn't choose English - USA to install the "check box" for pinyinput in that expander tree. So I had to use "English - Australia". As far as I know it is identical to that of the USA, so if you also used the ENglish - USA keyboard and don't want to have two English keyboards to switch between when you press alt+shift to shift languages, then you can underneath the "Default Input Language" drop down menu select "english (x country picked in pinyinput install. In my case it was australia) - US as your default language. This will keep things nice and tidy when you are switching between keyboards!

I don't use the Microsoft IME so I can't say for sure. In order to type pure pinyin like this nǐ hǎo,wǒ jiào oggiedoggy etc etc I found that using Sogou pinyin I had to change keyboard modes and thus could only type the ǎ ě ǒ etc diacritic marks so when I wanted to type the pinyin initials I had to keep switching back and forth inside sogou pinyin.

Then I came across Pinyinput which lets you type a pinyin word followed by 1 through 4 on your number keys and it will put the tone mark over the correct letter.

How does the Microsoft ABC compare?

Thank you to Oggiedoggy and to Jaime_Andres for your very professional imput! Hope everyone that comes across this page benefits immensely! Let me try this step by step.