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MacPinyin -- Pinyinput for Mac


peekay

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First, thanks for making such a useful input system. The extended keyboard layout is a big cumbersome to use... option-` isn't a very easy keystroke!

That being said, has the installer been tested under X.6? I'm not able to get it to run on my MacBook Pro.

Also, are there any hanzi -> pinyin converters for Mac? I'm still wowed by my Windows using friends' ability to highlight Chinese text in Word and automatically have the corresponding pinyin inserted above the characters.

Thanks!

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Disregard my post above, the problems with the installer were a system problem that resolved itself after I restarted.

Thanks for developing such a useful input method, it has been saving me quite a bit of effort whilst typing up flash cards! Really helpful.:clap:clap

To answer my second question, Pinyin Dictionary does hanzi --> pinyin conversion. It doesn't seem to work in-line in Word or Pages, but it works well enough!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks Peekay,

your MacPinyin works also great with OpenOffice. It is fun now to do my annotations.

Being on a sabattical, I have now time again since about 30 years to do real research and writing work.

I did work with the chinese language from 1974 to about 1980, at that time through the classical way of working with piles of dictionairies on my desk, being so proficient that I did grab the characters within a 10 pages range with one grip.

But using such a mac as workbench for working with chinese texts is so much faster and comfortable. Your MacPinyin was the only thing that was missing.

I use the "alt cmd spacebar" command to change between the input methods. I works great.

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For those that use the excellent QIM input method for OSX: you can write pinyin with QIM, though it is a bit awkward.

It's explained in this comment:

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/3962#comment-112504

I pasted the comment below:

xemrac says

March 6, 2009

hi all, just a note that with QIM it's quite easy to type pinyin with tone marks, and you can even make sure you're referring to the correct character.

QIM > preferences > candidate palette > check "use tones to filter candidates"

now you can use the tab key to toggle between tones after you input the pinyin

to output pinyin with tone marks instead of the 漢字, you hit "return."

so to type chīfàn, i just type "chi>tab>return" "fan>tabtabtabtab>return"

pretty simple, i think, and you can see (in the candidate palette) that you've got the right tone for the character. and all within QIM, which i think is totally worth the $19 investment.

hope this is useful and not just some obvious thing that everyone knows already!! :

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  • 3 months later...

I installed Pinyinput for Mac but I don't see the path "System Preferences -> International..."

When I open System Preferences, the only option which seems to be applicable is "Language & Text" in the "Personal" category. Within this is a subheading "Input Sources" and I have checked the option to enable "Macpinyin." However, when I attempt to type pinyin it doesn't seem to work. Here's an example; hao3

This is on a new Mac Pro. -What am I missing?

Thanks,

Chris

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You have to select the input method when you type as well. Select "show input menu in menu bar" in "Language & Text->Input Source" and then you will be able to see which input method is currently activated. You can quickly change it by mouse or keyboard shortcuts if you have set one.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi guys, I just downloaded MacPinyin V1 and opened the dmg file. It seemed to install successfully but I can't find a link to it anywhere in the Language & Text Preferences. I'm using Mac OS X. What am I missing? Help!

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Hi all,

I've been using MacPinyin to make flashcards in jMemorize for about a year now, with no problems whatsoever. Unfortunately, a few days ago it suddenly stopped working. I can still use MacPinyin fine in other applications, and other foreign language inputs still work fine in jMemorize. However, similar pinyin IMEs (for example "biaoyin") have the same problem as MacPinyin. So it appears to be some sort of specific problem between those IMEs and jMemorize.

Does anyone know what it is about MacPinyin/Biaoyin that makes them not work with jMemorize? Any thoughts on why they would suddenly stop working after nearly a year of no problems? Is there any way I can get them working again?

So far I've tried reinstalling jMemorize, reinstalling MacPinyin, manually deleting the system cache and restarting a whole bunch of times. No use. I realize jMemorize isn't the best flashcard system out there, but I really don't want to have to switch programs unless absolutely necessary. At the very least it's simple and efficient. And a year's worth of cards and learning data are all in there.

Thanks for any help you guys can give!

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Got it. Appears to have been a problem with the most recent Java update. If anyone else is experiencing similar problems you can fix it by rolling back to an earlier version of Java. Of course on a Mac that requires reinstalling the entire operating system...

Not sure if peekay still reads this thread, but thanks again for making such a useful tool. Just like jMemorize it's exactly what I need: simple and efficient. If you ever plan to release an update I have noticed one small bug. The syllable "lei" gets rejected as bad pinyin. Of course one can always first type a "lè" and add an "i" at the end. Also, what is the difference between IME's like MacPinyin and ones like Sougou, FIT, Google Pinyin? It was odd that the problem only appeared with MacPinyin and Biaoyin but not with any other user-constructed IMEs.

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