Activating Jade Gazebo

Jade Gazebo can be used with almost any Windows application.

After opening your favourite word processor, you can activate Jade Gazebo using the Language Bar. The Language Bar is part of Microsoft Windows. If the Language Bar is minimized, it will appear as an icon on the Taskbar.

The Language Bar is minimized and appears as an icon on the Taskbar

Let's start typing

If you don’t have our keyboard stickers on your keyboard, tap the Ctrl key to see the on-screen keyboard.

Then type the radicals that correspond to character you want to type.

For example, if you want to type 一, press the q key. For 二, press the y key.

For 三, you could type y q or q q q. For 四, you could type p i q or h i.

五 is q 8.
六 is Y o or e q o.
七 is O.
八 is o.
九 is A.
And 〇 is 0.

When you’ve finished typing the radicals, press the spacebar to generate the character.

Sometimes the radicals you’ve typed can match more than one character. If that happens, the computer will beep when you press the spacebar. You can select your desired character using the F-keys at the top of your keyboard.

Complex characters

Characters are usually typed from top-to-bottom, using as few keypresses as possible. For example, 犬 is e k . 羊 is o q d d . 牛 is J d .

Sometimes characters have parts that are typed left-to-right. For example, 北 is y w s . 卅 is d d d.

If a character is made-up of multiple sub-characters, type the sub-characters in the order they would be written. For 語, you’d type the radicals for 言 (Y y h), followed by the radicals for 五 (q 8), followed by the radicals for 口 (h).

Faster typing with Tab and Enter

The Tab and Enter keys are completely optional. You don’t need to use them, but they can make Jade Gazebo very fast.

Jade Gazebo will anticipate what you might be typing, and display it as a candidate labelled “Tab”. Pressing the Tab key will select that candidate. If a candidate has a dot next to it, that means you can press the Enter key to generate that character immediately, without needing to choose the candidate or press the spacebar.

For example, the sentence “中國是個美好的國家。” can be typed as H Enter   p v Enter   b Tab Enter   u p Tab Enter   o q j k Enter   K t Enter   r b Tab Enter   p v Enter   e p Tab .  

That’s only 31 keypresses, compared to 36 for the same sentence in pinyin.

Switching between English and Chinese

Pressing CapsLock switches to English mode, and pressing CapsLock again switches back to Chinese mode. Use English mode for typing letters or numbers.

In English mode, punctuation keys generate Western-style punctuation. In Chinese mode, they generate Chinese-style punctuation. You can use AltGr (the right Alt key) to access additional punctuation symbols, like the ¥ currency symbol.