Type Chinese using Shuangpin - Simplified on Mac
With the Shuangpin - Simplified input source, you can enter Simplified Chinese characters using double-stroke Pinyin (Shuangpin) phonetic input codes. In Shuangpin, any initial consonant or vowel is mapped to a single letter. As a result, you can type any character with two keystrokes.
Note: All examples given below use the Default Shuangpin layout.
Enter Chinese characters using Shuangpin - Simplified
Shuangpin uses one letter for any initial consonant or vowel. Shuangpin - Simplified supports five different layouts. See View Shuangpin keyboard layouts.
On your Mac, first set up the input source (add Shuangpin - Simplified and, if desired, Handwriting - Simplified).
Click the Input menu in the menu bar, then do one of the following:
Choose Shuangpin - Simplified to use the keyboard.
If your Mac has a Touch Bar and you customized the Control Strip to add the Input Sources button
, tap it to select Shuangpin - Simplified.Choose Handwriting - Simplified to use the trackpad.
If your Mac has a Touch Bar and you customized the Control Strip to add the Handwriting button
, tap it to select Handwriting - Simplified. See Use Trackpad Handwriting to write Chinese.
In an app, do any of the following:
Enter Pinyin: Type the input codes for the characters you want to use, then select the characters in the Candidate window. For example, to enter 苹, type “py”, then select 苹 in the window.
Enter Full Pinyin (Quanpin): Type the input codes for the characters you want to use, then select the characters in the Candidate window. For example, to enter 电脑, type “dwnk”, then select 电脑 in the window.
Enter Structural Pinyin (Chaizi): Type a Chaizi input code with two or more syllables, then press Shift-Space bar. For example, type “jiji”, then press Shift-Space bar. The Candidate window opens, and the first candidates shown in the Composition pane are 喆, 兓, and 旣.
With structural Pinyin, each syllable of the input sequence is treated as the Pinyin for one of the components in the character (in order from left to right and top to bottom).
Enter characters without an initial consonant: To type a character without an initial consonant (such as 昂, 熬, 啊, or 哦), do the following:
Default, Sogou, or Weiruan Shuangpin: Type the letter o, then the letter representing the vowel. For example, to enter 昂 in the Default layout, type oh.
Pinyin Jiajia Shuangpin: Type the initial letter of the vowel, then the letter representing the vowel. For example, to enter 昂, type ag.
Xiaohe Shuangpin: For vowels with one or three letters, type the initial letter of the vowel, then the letter representing the vowel. For example, to enter 昂, type ah. For vowels with two letters, type the full spelling of the vowel. For example, to enter 嗯, type en.
Show the keyboard layout: Click the Input menu in the menu bar, then choose Show Keyboard Viewer.
If the menu item isn’t shown, choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, click Keyboard, click Keyboard, then select “Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar.”
Enter Chinese characters using Stroke with Shuangpin - Simplified
On your Mac, first set up the input source (add Shuangpin - Simplified and, if desired, Handwriting - Simplified).
Click the Input menu in the menu bar, then do one of the following:
Choose Shuangpin - Simplified to use the keyboard.
If your Mac has a Touch Bar and you customized the Control Strip to add the Input Sources button
, tap it to select Shuangpin - Simplified.Choose Handwriting - Simplified to use the trackpad.
If your Mac has a Touch Bar and you customized the Control Strip to add the Handwriting button
, tap it to select Handwriting - Simplified. See Use Trackpad Handwriting to write Chinese.
In an app, use a prefix key (U), followed (without a space) by the stroke input code for a character. For example, you can type the following:
Stroke within Shuangpin
Keyboard key
一
H
丨
S
丿
P
丶(乀)
N
乛(乙)
Z
*wildcard
X
If you type “Unnzzsh”, you get 字 as the first candidate.
You can also add words to your user dictionary to save time when you need to type the same word again.
You may need to change preferences, for example, to show predictive completions or to change the orientation of the Candidate window.