FAQ: Windows Chinese Traditional (Taiwan) Input Method Candidate List

Getting Chinese to Work in Windows Shouldn't Be This Hard...

How do I get the "candidate list" to appear in the Windows Taiwan (Traditional) Microsoft New Phonetic IME?

I get this question a lot. This certainly is not an intuitive design, but pressing just two keys will get you the basic list.

Type a character using Pinyin (or Zhuyin, etc.) and then press the <space bar>. The first character in the list will appear. Then press <down arrow> and the candidate list will appear:

That's the basic idea, just those two keys, <space bar> and <down arrow>. Select your choice (more on that in a moment), and then back on the sentence line press <Enter> to confirm and move on.

If you are typing a cizu or phrase of two characters or more, you can also press <left arrow> to move to the beginning of those characters before pressing <down arrow> to see if the list has the entire word or phrase:

In either case, you then press <down arrow> or <Page Down> to proceed through the list up to nine at a time, or press <right arrow> to fully expand the list:

To select a character press the number next to it, or navigate to it with your arrow keys and hit <Enter>, or click it with your mouse. The numbers move with you as you change columns with the cursor.

Back on the sentence line, to confirm the selection and move on press the <Enter> key. As you use this IME it will learn from you. Your most frequent character for each sound will show up as the first choice, with the next most frequent character next in the list, and so on.

There are other options you can learn, such as the little pull-down menu at the bottom of the candidate window that allows you to filter by poyin zi (alternate pronunciations).

Need more help?

For more information on using this IME, see my pages on where to find English language "user guides":

English Language Help Files for Windows 7
English Language Help Files for Windows Vista
(Sorry, never did a page like that for Windows XP but see the Windows 7 page and you'll get the idea.)

Related FAQ:

Why are the characters so small? Enlarging the characters in the Chinese Traditional (Taiwan) Input Method Candidate List

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