Typing Chinese Characters

Now that I’ve embarked upon learning to read and write the Chinese script, the question of, “How the heck do people type Chinese characters on a computer?” has become more than just a curious afterthought.

Do they have a 6000 key keyboard, one key per character?

Apparently not.

Most Chinese speakers (all?) use a software tool that allows them to type a pinyin syllable, and then select the actual character they wish to enter from a list of characters that match the pinyin.

Windows supports this through a tool called the Input Method Editor (IME). The easiest way I’ve come across to set it up is described here by a Shanghai blogger.