Updated: October 26, 2010
Having lived in North America for more than 16 years, it becomes harder and harder for me to recall and write Chinese characters. Some input methods become quite unusable for me, such as Changjie (倉頡), Array (行列), and all those that require you to recall how the character looks like, and dissect it according to their radicals (部首). Similarly, hand writing pads (手寫版) do not work either, since I don’t even remember how the characters looks like. Hence the most direct way is to go by Cantonese Pinyin (廣東話拼音), since the phonetic sound the only thing I can retain.
So for you Cantonese-speaking Mac users out there, this is how you do it:
Download and Install:
- Download Yahoo! Key Key 奇摩輸入法 from http://tw.media.yahoo.com/keykey/ (As of writing, latest version is 1.1.2510 for Leopard or later)
- Follow the installation instructions on the download page.
Prepare the Cantonese Data File Folder:
- Create a new folder called “DataTables” on your desktop.
- Within the “DataTables” folder, create another folder called “Generic”.
- Download this canton.cin data file (right-click and save link as).
- Copy canton.cin to the “Generic” folder.
Install the Cantonese Data File into Yahoo! KeyKey:
- Now locate “Yahoo! KeyKey.app” in /Library/Input Methods.
- Right-click on it and choose “Show Package Contents”.
- Go inside Contents/Resources.
- Drag the entire “DataTables” folder from your desktop into the “Resources” folder.
- It might ask you to type your admin password to authenticate the copying process. (Note: If there are multiple users on your computer wanting to use this input method, make sure you add read and write access rights to the “DataTables” folder for everyone by right-clicking on the folder, choose “Get Info”, then do it under “Sharing & Permissions”.)
- Now log out and log back in.
Final Setup:
- Switch to the Yahoo! KeyKey input method and click on the input method icon on the menu bar.
- You should see “Canton” as one of the choices. Check it.
- Also remember to turn on “Associated Phrases” (this is very useful).
- Congratulations! You can start typing away!
Advanced Tweaking:
- You can turn off all the other input methods by going to Yahoo! KeyKey’s preferences under the General tab.
- In preferences, under the Generic tab, check “Put recently chosen candidates in front” to make frequently typed characters appear further in the front of the character selection pages.
- If you want to add new characters, modify pinyins, or adjust the character position in the selection bar, you can just open up canton.cin in a Unicode text editor like TextWrangler (my favorite!) and edit it yourself. It should be pretty self explanatory, but do it at your own risk! If you want the data file’s formatting documentation, read this.
Thanks for telling. I will include that as my backup input method.
thanks for posting this!
Thanz man! you dont understand how much day and time i used to get the canton.cin off the net ever since OV dev cycle ended! Finally, I found this.
That’s why we should write blog – share oldies when the official is gone.
@Henz: Glad that you found what you needed. Btw, I have just rewrote these instructions. OV is so broken nowadays. Yahoo! KeyKey is much better.
Hey, I was wondering if this method works with the newest version of Mac OSX? Because I got right up to the third set of instructions and then got stuck – I can’t find Yahoo! KeyKey.app anywhere on my computer. Any suggestions?
@Alex:
Yes, it works with Snow Leopard.
Have you installed Yahoo Key Key yet?
It should be located at /Library/Input Methods
Try to use Spotlight to locate it.
yes i cant find “Canton” under the list yahookeykey. help!!
i am using snow leopard
I tried using spotlight and I can’t seem to find yahoo! keykey.app
I’m using snow leopard.
Hey, you really saved me a boat load of time with all the information you have on this website. I found everything I was looking for thank you
Hey, just wanted to say THANKS for all the useful instructions in your post.
why cant i find canton on the list under yahookeykey?
ive followed eveything correctly, im currently using mac os x 10.6
yes i cant find “Canton” under the list yahookeykey. help!!
i am using snow leopard
Nice post. I was checking continuously this blog and I’m impressed! Extremely helpful info particularly the last part
I care for such information much. I was looking for this particular info for a very long time. Thank you and best of luck.
Thanks Anson! I gave up on Mac long time ago when I couldn’t find a good Cantonese input. Even though I am still on Windows, this post of yours remove a barrier for me should I need to switch. The pull is constantly there ^_^. I like that (apparently) I can edit the input.in to tweet the pronunciation preference (but the canton.cin you provided is just so good and exactly my way. Have great redundancy for s and sh, j and ch, etc.) Even have nei for 袮! I am gonna try 奇摩輸入法 on Windows first. It will tremendously help my sermon preparation, thank you. God bless you!
First of all, thanks for posting this up and this is very big help.
Secondly, for Jamie. I also can’t find the “Canton” under the list in very early stage. Then i download the canton.cin file again. (Please note that the file may be save as .txt format. As the result, you should remove .txt or otherwise the input method will not work)
謝謝你！特別鳴謝係jimmy 的貼士，把 .txt 改為 .cin
does it work in lion?
i tried to install in lion, it doesn’t work.
Brilliant. I have the same problem with typing chinese as the OP. Left HK 20 years ago and can hardly remember what anything looks like! Been using Google’s HK portal to type chinese and cut and paste back to other websites/emails. This works like a charm.
@belleza, it works in Lion for. Make sure you do what Jimmy says and remove .txt from the canton.cin file, and also check the spelling of the folders you created. The International is ‘Language & Text’ in Lion’s System Preferences.
I’m very new to Mac.
I’m using a Mac OS X Lion 10.7 and i got up to the part where i need to locate Yahoo! KeyKey.app and then dragging the entire DataTables into the Resources folder.
I can’t locate the Yahoo! KeyKey.app and i can’t seem to drag and drop the folder into what I suspected to be the app.
Please help!!! Many Mnay Thanks!!!
i can’t find the library/input methods folder on lion help please
i meant the app in the folder**
i can’t find the app in my input method folder /: help please
This works in Lion. In Finder, click Go to Folder and type:
~/Library/Application Support/Yahoo! KeyKey/DataTables
Make a folder called Generic and put the canton.cin file there. Log out and log back in and it should be there.
Thanks to the contribution by all of the people above.
I am using OX Lion. According to the above instruction on the top, at “Final Setup”: step 1 & 2, “Canton” does not appear under the “Yahoo!keykey” on my computer. However, “Canton” appears as a separate input method in addition to “yahoo!keykey” at “Languaguage and Texts”
Now, although chinese character can still be typed through canton input, there is no such option as “associated phrase”, and the canton input is rather inconvenient because for each word I type, I have to press a space-bar first, and then select the words by using “down” arrow key.
Can anyone tell me how to install “Canton” under “Yahoo!keykey” as shown on the above instruction picture? Many thanks.
Stan
Thank you so much !!!! I tried to install multiple versions of KeyKey [including the one for Tiger which works on my MBP with Snow Leopard, but not on Lion 10.7.2] and still couldn’t use Cantonese input until now !!!
Yet the 廣東拼音 appears a bit different, e.g. I need to type “ngoh” instead of “ngo” for typing “我”字, not sure if it’s due to the newer version of Keykey or not, anyhow, I can finally use Cantonese input on Lion!!
for those who find it difficult to locate the folder [which I am one of them ^^], I followed elaine’s teaching, In Finder, click Go to Folder and type: /Library/Input Methods, and it will do.