Hi, I have an american laptop and don't like using the romaji input. I have gone into the control panel and have selected Japanese>keyboard>japanese. I can toggle between katakana and english letters via the language bar, but can't figure out how to type in hiragana.

If anyone could help me out that would be great, thanks

Press and hold left Alt+Caps Lock and you can switch to Hiragana. Ctrl+Caps Lock lets you quickly switch to Romaji. And if you own a G-11, G-15 or G-19 keyboard, or any other one that allows you to add macros, create macros and bind them to a key.

that's what I read on a different site as well, but it doesn't seem to work. there's nowhere to change it on the language bar either. I know almost no one uses direct kana input, but I don't like romanji

Click "KANA" on the right hand side of the IME language bar (under the "CAPS"). That should toggle between romaji and kana input.

[Correction: "Input mode" works for both romaji and kana input. Switch input from katakana to hiragana. (I had written it was only for romaji input.)]

that button does toggle between romanji and kana, but the kana is katakana and I can't figure out how to switch it to hiragana

theadamie Wrote:that button does toggle between romanji and kana, but the kana is katakana and I can't figure out how to switch it to hiragana

So I am going to assume that by pressing [t] then [e] gets you 「テ」 with a squiggly line under it instead of 「て」.

* Then you need to press the [カ] on the IME pad and select [ひらがな(H)].　

Remember that the [KANA] under [CAPS] on the right side should be white.

Please look at this IME Toolbar it should look similar, with the keep points being [あ] and [KANA].

If you are interesting in pressing [w]　and getting 「て」　then make sure the [KANA] is highlighted (not white).

Try L-ALT + ~ (left thumb on 'alt' key and left index finger on '~')

This is what I use to switch quickly between English and Japanese when sending emails. It's sort of like typing a ' ! ', only easier. It's almost my favorite shortcut; being second only to R-ALT + INSERT for rikaichan.

If you're just looking to type kana directly, click on 'kana' below 'caps' on the IME toolbar. This also works with the shortcut above. Just use the shortcut to switch to kana, then click 'kana' on the toolbar. Now, you can type directly in kana and use the shortcut to switch back to English. Each time you switch to kana now using the shortcut, MS IME will remember that you specified 'kana'. I hope that makes sense.

hey guys, thanks a lot. I got it to work but I think my computer was just glitching out earlier. I only had "JP-red circle+brush- caps+kana" the "あ" wasn't there and neither was the "conversion mode" button. anyways thanks for all the help!

*romaji

The closest thing I'm able to find is to go into the IME settings and map a key combination to "Input Method." This does the job, but it displays an annoying confirmation dialog every time you do it, so I dunno what to tell ya.

You probably already found this, but just in case... there's an 'options' menu (beside 'kana') where you can select which items will display on the language bar

Just download some macro software. When I still used windows I had the useless context keys on the keyboard remapped to the eisuu/kana key codes.

theadamie Wrote:that button does toggle between romanji and kana, but the kana is katakana and I can't figure out how to switch it to hiragana

I am verry sorry. I forgot to mention that when you first switch over you will have Katakana. (L-Alt + Shift) After that you have to press (L-Alt and Caps-Lock) to switch from Katakana to Hiragana. If you want to switch from Hiragana to Romaji it is (L-Ctrl and Shift) and for switiching back to Hiragana (L-Ctrl and Shift) again.