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QuickPin is a system for rapid input of Pinyin romanized Chinese text (not characters) using current versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Netscape (unfortunately for technical reasons it will not work with Netscape 4).

See also: QuickTone, our new software for typing Pinyin directly in Microsoft Word.

QuickPin is much more than just a simple keyboarding tool: it incorporates key fundamental features of the Chinese language itself to make typing easier, faster and error-free.

How it works

The four tones are typed as follows:

Simply type the vowel you want, using the appropriate combination of Shift key and repetition, to input the correct tone mark. This system is much easier and quicker than constantly moving your fingers to find the 1, 2, 3 and 4 keys.

Let's take a simple example: the phrase Dǎ tā yí dùn. Here's how you would type it using QuickPin:

Major QuickPin features include:

a "feel" for the language:

QuickPin was developed by a team including fluent speakers of Chinese.

alphabetical input of tone-marks

Just type the vowel once or twice, in some cases with the Shift key. For example, simply type:

• canguan for cānguān
• suooyii for suǒyǐ
• dAAibiaao for dàibiǎo

automatic tone sandhi for bu and yi [both optional]:

• bu yAAo for bú yào, buhaaoyIIsi\ for bùhǎoyìsi
• yi huiir for yì huǐr, yi kAAn ta for yí kàn tā

automatic neutral tone (qīngshēng) [optional] for de, le, me, -men and other common particles:

niimen lAile for nǐmen láile; or zhEEige shi woode for zhèige shi wǒde

To indicate other cases of qīngshēng type a backstroke (\): eg pEngyo\u for péngyou.

toggle between Chinese and foreign-language text input