How to Type Pinyin With Tone Marks on Any Device

1. Open any app where you can type and tap a text field to show the Apple onscreen keyboard.
2. Touch and hold the vowel you want to mark. If the tone-marked vowel appears, slide your finger to it and release. If it is missing, use the numbered-Pinyin converter linked at the bottom of this page.
3. If you use an external Apple keyboard, go to Settings → General → Keyboard → Hardware Keyboard, select your language, then choose ABC Extended. Apple’s ABC Extended layout supports Mandarin Pinyin tone marks.
4. With ABC Extended selected, use Option + A for the 1st tone, Option + E for the 2nd tone, Option + V for the 3rd tone, and Option + ` for the 4th tone.
5. For example, press Option + V, release the keys, then type a to produce ǎ. For a neutral tone, type the vowel normally without a tone mark.

External-keyboard tip: ABC Extended is the better Apple option when you need to type complete tone-marked Pinyin regularly.

1. Choice 1: Press and hold the vowel. Open the app where you want to type Pinyin, then press and hold the vowel you want to mark, such as a.
2. When the accent menu appears, click the marked vowel you want, or press the number shown below it.
3. Choice 2: Set up ABC - Extended. Open System Settings → Keyboard. Under Text Input, click Edit, then click the + button. Search for ABC - Extended, select it, and click Add. Click Done, then choose ABC - Extended from the input menu in the menu bar.
4. With ABC - Extended selected, press Option together with the key for the tone mark, release both keys, then type the vowel.
5. Use Option + A for the 1st tone, Option + E for the 2nd tone, Option + V for the 3rd tone, and Option + ` for the 4th tone.
6. For example, press Option + V, release the keys, then type a to produce ǎ. For a neutral tone, type the vowel normally without a tone mark.

Tip: The press-and-hold accent menu is not available in every app. If the menu does not appear or does not show the tone-marked vowel you need, use the ABC - Extended method above.

1. For the fastest no-install method, type numbered Pinyin such as ni3 hao3 and use the converter linked at the bottom of this page.
2. For an individual marked vowel using Windows itself, open Start, search for Character Map, and open it.
3. Find the tone-marked vowel you need, choose Select → Copy, then paste it where you are typing.
4. In the Word desktop app or classic Outlook for Windows, you can also use Insert → Symbol → More Symbols. In Word, another option is to type a Unicode code, select that code, and press Alt + X. For example, 01CE becomes ǎ. See our character-code reference (ZIP download).

Tip: Microsoft Pinyin is the Windows Chinese input method that lets you type Pinyin and choose the matching Chinese characters. It is not meant for typing Pinyin itself with tone marks, such as nǐ hǎo.

1. If you do not already use Gboard, install it from Google Play and follow its setup prompts to enable and select it. Open an app where you can type, then tap a text field to show Gboard.
2. On Gboard, touch and hold a vowel to see available accented forms, then slide to the one you want.
3. If you do not see all the Pinyin tone marks you need, add Gboard’s Alphabet keyboard. Open Gboard Settings → Languages → Add keyboard, select Alphabet, choose the QWERTY layout, then tap Done.
4. Switch to the Alphabet keyboard by touching and holding the space bar and selecting Alphabet. Then touch and hold the vowel you want to mark and slide to the correct tone-marked vowel.

Tip: If Alphabet is not listed or a tone-marked vowel is missing, use the numbered-Pinyin converter linked at the bottom of this page.