How to Type Pinyin Tonal Marks in Windows 10 and 11

by Felix Wong | 30 Nov 2019

As I have been learning Mandarin over the last several years, I’ve been looking for a good method to type Pinyin, which is how Anglos “spell” Chinese words using the English (well, Latin) alphabet and tonal marks. To my utter surprise, there is not a single stock keyboard in the Language Options settings of Windows 10 that is good for that purpose. So I created my own, which I dubbed the United States-International+Pinyin keyboard.

This keyboard is very similar to Microsoft’s United States-International keyboard which uses dead keys to create accent marks over vowels for languages such as Spanish and French. The main difference in my keyboard is that it adds a couple more dead keys so that you can type vowels with a high tonal mark over them (e.g., ā,ē,ī,ō,ū,ǖ), and a falling-rising tonal mark (e.g., ǎ,ě,ǐ,ǒ,ǔ,ǚ).

As I frequently type in English, French, Spanish, and Pinyin, this above keyboard is very useful and is the only one I had been using on Windows 10 and Windows 11 since early 2019 (until I switched to an iPad Pro in 2022). To use it as your primary keyboard, there is a slight learning curve because if you need to type one of the characters that is a dead key (i.e., ‘, `, -, =, “, ~), you need to remember to press [space] after pressing the key. Eventually it becomes second-nature.

Instructions on how to install the keyboard is as follows.

Installing the United States International+Pinyin keyboard

Note: If you had installed an older version of the keyboard and are installing a newer version, you should completely remove the older version first. Otherwise, both keyboards will be installed and selectable, which would be confusing and unwanted. Follow the instructions in the uninstall section.

1. Download the latest United States-International+Pinyin v3 keyboard from my website: US_International+Pinyin_keyboard_v3.zip
   You can usually do this by either clicking on the link above, or by right-clicking the link and then selecting Save as.
2. Open the ZIP file from step 1. File Explorer appears.
3. Open setup.exe. Windows Defender Smartscreen may give you a warning saying that it “prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk.” If that’s the case, click on More info, and then Run anyway.
4. If successful, you should get a message window saying Installation Complete.
   

   

I recommend rebooting Windows afterwards, but it may not be necessary.

To select (activate) the keyboard, click on the language icon (circled in yellow below) in the Windows system tray, and then select the United States-International+Pinyin keyboard.

How to Type Pinyin and Accented Characters

Below are the keystrokes needed to type Pinyin, and also accented characters for French and Spanish.

Pinyin Characters

ā,ē,ī,ō,ū = [-] [vowel] (i.e., press the minus button and then the vowel)
á,é,í,ó,ú = [‘] [vowel]
ǎ,ě,ǐ,ǒ,ǔ = [=] [vowel]
à,è,ì,ò,ù = [`] [vowel]
ü = [“] [u]. In Windows 10, pressing [ctrl] + [alt] + [u] simultaneously may also work (it doesn’t in Windows 11).
but ǖ = [-] [v] and Ǖ = [-] [V]. (Similarly, use the v key for putting the three other pinyin tonal marks above.)

Special Characters for French, Spanish, and Other Languages

To type accented characters for French, Spanish, and other languages, the keystrokes are the same as for Microsoft’s standard United States-International keyboard.

á,é,í,ó,ú = [‘] [vowel]
à,è,ì,ò,ù = [`] [vowel]
ñ = [~] [n]
ç = [‘] [c]
¿ = [ctrl] + [alt] + [/] (Press [ctrl], [alt], and [/] simultaneously. Note that [/] is the same key as [?] except you don’t need to press shift, making it easy to remember.)
¡ = [ctrl] + [alt] + [1] (Press [ctrl], [alt], and [/] simultaneously. Note that [1] is the same key as [!] except you don’t need to press shift, making it easy to remember.)

Typing ‘, `, -, =, “, ~

‘ = [‘] [space]
` = [`] [space]
– = [-] [space]
= = [=] [space]
” = [“] [space]
~ = [~] [space]

Uninstall the United States-International+Pinyin keyboard

If you try the keyboard and decide you don’t like it or need it–or you need to install a later version–you can uninstall it as follows:

1. From the Release Notes section below, download the version of the keyboard installed on your computer.
2. Open the folder and launch setup.exe. Windows Defender Smartscreen may give you a warning saying that it “prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk.” If that’s the case, click on More info, and then Run anyway.
3. You should get the following dialog box with an option to remove:

   

4. If the dialog box only has options to install, then you haven’t downloaded the correct version of the keyboard. Try downloading a different version from the release notes and repeat Steps 1 to 3 for it.
5. Select Remove the keyboard layout, and then Finish.

Video

Confused as to how this works? Here’s a video demonstrating most of the above!

How to Type Chinese Characters instead of Pinyin

The above instructions are for typing Pinyin and accents for Latin-based languages only.

If you want to type Chinese characters instead of Pinyin in Windows 10 or 11, follow the instructions in the video below.

Release Notes

If you have an old version of the United States International+Pinyin keyboard, you should completely remove it before installing a newer version. You can uninstall older versions by downloading their zip file below and then following the instructions in the uninstall section.

Version 1 (released November 30, 2019): Download v1 zip file

• Bug: Incorrectly displays the third tone for the letters a and o as ă and ŏ instead of ǎ and ǒ. Version 2 corrects this; i.e., it uses a caron instead of a rounded breve for those letters. (Thanks to reader Pong for discovering this error.) It also has the same bugs as Version 2.

Version 2 (released November 16, 2021): Download v2 zip file

• Corrects [=] [a] and [=] [o] to type ǎ and ǒ.
• Bug: Incorrectly displays the third tone for the letters E, I, and U and as Ĕ, Ĭ, and Ŭ instead of Ě, Ǐ, and Ǔ. I.e., it incorrectly uses a rounded breve instead of a caron for those letters. (Thanks to reader C.M. for discovering this error.)
• Bug (with Windows 11): Pressing [ctrl] + [alt] + [u] simultaneously doesn’t type ü; only [“] [u] does. (Thanks to reader Goldy for alerting me about this.)

Version 3 (released June 28, 2024): Download v3 zip file

• Corrects [=] [E], [=] [I], and [=] [U] to type Ě, Ǐ, and Ǔ.
• [-] [V] and [-] [v] now type Ǖ and ǖ.
• [=] [V] and [=] [v] now type Ǚ and ǚ.
• [‘] [V] and [‘] [v] now type Ǘ and ǘ.
• [`] [V] and [`] [v] now type Ǜ and ǜ.