How to type in Chinese on your iMac.

Here's the steps to get your Apple iMac set up to type in Chinese. It's pretty simple but I've put detailed instructions below so that anyone can set it up, no matter how good/bad you are with computers. :-) Please note: I am using Mac OS X Version 10.6.6 It may be a little different on older versions.

1. Click on the apple symbol in the top, lefthand corner of your screen.

2. Click on System Preferences. A window should open.

3. Click (You'll probably have to double click) on an icon called Language and Text. It has a little blue flag above it and is the 5th icon from the left in the top row. If your display is a little different, it is under the category, 'personal'.

4. Now that you are in the Language and Text window, there should be 4 headings near the top. The last one should be Input Sources. Click on this.

5. You will now see a list of languages on the left that you can scroll through. Scroll down until you find Chinese and click on the box next to it. You can choose either Simplified or Traditional Chinese. I only use Simplified. It also has 4 sub-options underneath it. I'm pretty sure the main one you will need is just the pinyin-simplified one but you can tick all if you like just to make sure. You can always try them out and then go back and un-tick them later.

6. Take a look at the bottom of the Language and Text window and make sure you tick an option that says 'Show Input menu in menu bar'. You have now done everything you need to do to get going.

7. Before you close the Language and Text window, you can have a look at the keyboard shortcuts for changing between English and Chinese. These make it a lot faster and efficient if you are often changing between the two languages. You will see the shortcuts near the top right corner of the window. You can use the default shortcuts already shown or if you click on the button that says 'keyboard shortcuts...', you can set up your own shortcuts. I won't go into how to set up your own because that could take awhile but feel free to try it out yourself. You can always reset them back to the default settings if you mess it up.

8. Give it a go using the keyboard shortcuts to change between English and Chinese. Make sure you have a typing program open like Text Edit or Pages so you can actually try it out.

9. To see which language you are in, take a look at the bar at the very top of your screen. In the top right corner near the time, you should see either a flag from your country (mine shows an Australian flag) or a grey square with a Chinese character in it. This is what indicates your language 'input'. You can either use the keyboard shortcuts to make this change or you can click on the flag/symbol with your mouse to make a drop down menu appear. You can then choose your selected language with your mouse from the drop down menu.

10. When you are in Chinese typing mode, you need to type in the pinyin for the character you want. For example, try typing, 'yi'. A list will then appear of possible characters and you can select the character you want by pressing the corresponding number. This may seem slow at first but it actually gets quite quick with practice. It will only show 9 options at a time (sometimes less) but if the one you want isn't in the list, you can usually click on a little down arrow after the 9th character to see more options. I occasionally don't find the character I'm looking for. I don't know why they don't exist but I just find it in another program and copy and paste it in. For words that require more than one Chinese character, you can type in the pinyin for both (or more) characters and you will be given the option to choose multiple characters at once. Eg. type 'taiyang'. (this means sun) You will then be given the option to input 2 characters at once, 太阳. This is much faster than typing tai, selecting the character, and then typing yang, and selecting the character.

I think that's about everything you need to know. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I think the main thing is to have a go at it yourself and try it out. You will figure out all kinds of things when using it yourself.

Have fun typing in Chinese!!