Need to learn the keystrokes for the Telex, VNI, or VIQR input methods? Here's a chart you can use as a reference. Download it, modify it as you wish, and print! Please save trees by using the blank side of a used piece of paper, if possible. This Easy Vietnamese typing keyboard app is for those who want to type their own language through default Vietnamese keyboard. Now you can chat on social media, you just write in Roman English and easy Vietnamese keyboard and English to Vietnamese keyboard change it in Vietnamese input. Telex (or TELEX) is a Vietnamese typing method in the form of unmarked by the Vietnamese telegram signal, when entering text into a computer from an international keyboard. This typing method is based on a convention of Vietnamese language expression on telex, called telex convention.
For Macs: Change Keyboard
Mac users running OS X Leopard (version 10.5) or a later version should have built-in support for Vietnamese. Just follow these steps (but keep in mind that the naming of various user interface elements may vary from one Mac OS to another):
1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences.
2. Click on International.
3. In the International window, click on the Input Menu tab.
4. In the Input Menu tab, select Vietnamese UniKey. (By the way, your current keyboard should be kept selected.
5. Underneath Vietnamese UniKey, select the input method you want to use: Simple Telex, Telex, VNI, or VIQR.
6. Depending on the Mac OS X version you are running, you may or may not see the option allow a different input source for each document. An input source is basically a language and its corresponding input method. If you want to be able to have different input sources active in different applications, select this useful option. That way, you won’t need to keep switching input sources every time you switch between applications.
![Simple Simple](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119874835/886930416.jpg)
How To Type Vietnamese Telex
7. Select Show input menu in input bar to be able to easily switch from one input source to another within the same application. The input menu will appear on the right side of the menu bar and display all the enabled language input sources you selected.
Tip: Using keyboard shortcuts allows you to switch between input sources faster than by selecting the desired input source from the input menu. The input menu should list what the default keyboard shortcuts are. You can assign different keyboard shortcuts by clicking on the keyboard shortcuts option.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’ve recently enabled Vietnamese typing and find that your usernames and/or passwords are no longer working, it may be because you are typing in Vietnamese. Read steps 5 and 6 above to learn how to change input sources. Alternatively, deselect Vietnamese UniKey in your System Preferences if you no longer need it.
For Windows: Change Keyboard
Windows users can enable Vietnamese typing without having to download any additional software by following the steps further below. This particular method involves changing your settings so that your current keyboard will have the layout of the Vietnamese keyboard (i.e. the physical keyboard used in Vietnam).
Here’s the layout your keyboard would adopt:
(If you would prefer instead to keep the layout of your actual keyboard and use a defined or customizable method to type Vietnamese, skip this page and click here for instructions on installing and setting up software for typing Vietnamese in Word or other word processors.)
Follow these steps to change your current keyboard layout to the Vietnamese keyboard layout as seen above, (keeping in mind that the naming of user interface elements may vary between different versions of Windows):
1. Access the Start menu and select Control Panel.
2. Click on Clock, Language, and Region.
3. Under Region and Language, click on Change keyboards or other input methods.
4. In the Keyboards and Languages tab, click on Change keyboards… .
5. The Text Services and Input Languages window pops up. In the General tab, under the Installed services section, click on Add… .
6. In the Add Input Language window that pops up, type V or scroll down to Vietnamese (Vietnam).
6. In the Add Input Language window that pops up, type V or scroll down to Vietnamese (Vietnam).
7. Expand Vietnamese (Vietnam) by clicking on the + to the left of it.
8. Expand Keyboard by clicking on the + to the left of it.
9. Under Keyboard, select Vietnamese. A check mark should appear in the box next to it.
10. To see what the layout of the Vietnamese keyboard looks like, click Preview… .
11. Close out of the preview and click OK.
11. Close out of the preview and click OK.
12. You’re back in the General tab of the Text Services and Input Languages window. Under Default input language, select the input language you want to use as the default.
13. Click OK.
14. You’re back in the Region and Language window. Click OK.
15. In your taskbar, usually located near the system icons for clock and power, you should now see a language icon. The icon will display the two-letter language code of the language that you selected to be the default input language (see step 12 above). If you selected English as the default input language, the icon will display EN. If you selected Vietnamese as the default input language, the icon will display VI. To switch to another language-keyboard combination, click on the icon and select the option you want. The icon will display the 2-letter language code of whichever option has been activated.
Tip: To help familiarize yourself with the Vietnamese keyboard layout, you can print out a paper copy of it here and have it handy when you’re typing. Or, you can buy or create your own Vietnamese keyboard stickers and stick them onto your current keyboard. Keyboard stickers are usually available in light-colored lettering for dark keyboards and dark-colored lettering for white keyboards. Apart from the light- or dark-colored lettering, the stickers are transparent so that they don’t cover up the original lettering on your keyboard. If you decide to buy keyboard stickers online, from Amazon.com or Ebay.com for example, make sure they’re stickers you can stick onto individual keys and that you’re not buying what’s called a keyboard overlay. A keyboard overlay is a lettered paper or plastic sheet that covers your entire keyboard. The problem with it is that it’s hard to find the right overlay because it won’t fit onto your keyboard unless it matches your keyboard exactly in size, physical spacing between keys, and so forth.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’ve recently enabled Vietnamese typing and find that your usernames and/or passwords are no longer working, it may be because you are typing in Vietnamese. Read step 15 above to learn how to change input sources. Alternatively, remove the Vietnamese keyboard in your Control Panel if you no longer need it.
For Windows: Download VPSKEYS
Windows users who don’t mind taking a few minutes to download, install, and set up some software should consider typing Vietnamese using VPSKEYS. It’s free, and you can customize the keys used to enter the accents.
Before you get VPSKEYS, though, there are a few things you’ll need to do if you plan on typing Vietnamese in Microsoft Word. Because some of Word’s features may interfere with the correct functioning of VPSKEYS, you’ll have to deactivate them. Otherwise, you may encounter problems such as seemingly random insertion of spaces as well as capitalization of lowercase letters. So follow these measures:
1. In Word 2007, click on the circular, multi-colored Office icon in the upper left-hand corner.
2. Select Word Options, located toward the bottom right-hand corner of the window that pops up.
3. Select Proofing from the menu on the left-hand side.
4. Under the section AutoCorrect options, click the AutoCorrect Options… button.
5. In the window that pops up, uncheckReplace text as you type.
6. Click OK.
7. You’re back to the Word Options window. Now select Advanced from the menu on the left-hand side.
8. Under the section Cut, copy, and paste, uncheckUse smart cut and paste.
9. Click OK.
Hooray! Now you’re ready to get VPSKEYS! Follow these steps:
1. Download VPSKEYS from the Vietnamese Professionals Society website at http://www.vps.org. At the time this article was published, the website was under construction and the software was not available for download. Volunteer typists (you know who you are), you can find a copy of VPSKEYS in the folder I’ve shared with you.
2. Run the application and follow the steps for installation.
3. To complete the installation, you may or may not be prompted to restart your computer.
4. Once installation is complete, access the Start menu.
5. Click on All Programs.
6. Click on Hoi Chuyen Gia Viet Nam(Vietnamese Professionals Society).
7. Select VPSKEYS 4.3.
8. In your taskbar, near the system icons for clock and volume, the bright blue, diamond-shaped VPSKEYS 4.3 icon should appear. Click on the icon to open the application. (Important: this is also the icon you right-click on to exit the application when you want to stop typing in Vietnamese.)
9. Without going into all the details and features of the application, here are some basic guidelines for configuration:
a. In the Điều Chỉnh (Settings) tab, make sure that under Cách Đánh (Input Method), Việt Nam is selected. When you want to switch back to your original, regional input method (whether English, French, etc.), you can either manually select Địa Phương (Regional) in the application, or you can press ALT + SHIFT to toggle between input methods while typing.
b. DeselectAutoload, unless you want VPSKEYS to automatically load, or open, every time you start your computer.
c. In the Kỹ Thuật (Technical) tab, under Sửa Nút Dấu (Modify Accent Keys), keep the default Thường (Normal) selected.
d. You’ll see that by default, the accents have been assigned to number keys according to the VNI input method. If you want, you can reassign the accents according to other input methods such as Telex or VIQR, or your own input method.
e. If you want to use the “double key” shortcut, leave Đánh dấu đôi selected. This option enables entering a key twice in succession to produce a certain accented letter. The strokes and results, which are not all very intuitive, are as follows:
aa → ă
ee → ê
ii → ì
oo → ơ
uu → ư
yy → ỳ
dd → đ
ee → ê
ii → ì
oo → ơ
uu → ư
yy → ỳ
dd → đ
f. Finally, the Nút Thoát (Exit Key) is set by default to the backslash. You can assign it to a different key if you wish, but this is usually not necessary. The Exit key is VERY IMPORTANT because it allows you to temporarily cancel the accent-producing function of an assigned key so that you can use that key for its original purpose. For example, if I’ve chosen to assign accents to my number keys according to the VNI method, then typing A followed by the number 1 will result in Á. But what if I actually want to use the 1 key for its original purpose so I can write a Vietnamese poem about “A1 Steak Sauce”? I would have to use the backslash exit key right before I type 1. The keystrokes and result would be as follows:
A1 → A1
Alternatively, I can toggle back to my original input source, in this case English-US keyboard, by pressing ALT + SHIFT (mentioned in step a above). Then, after I’ve typed “A1 Steak Sauce,” I’d need to press ALT + SHIFT again to toggle back to Vietnamese.
One more example: Say I’m using the VIQR input method, whereby typing a period after a vowel will insert dấu nặng below it. But I actually want to end my sentence with a word ending in a vowel and punctuate it with a period, as in “Nó thích ăn kẹo me.” (“She/He likes to eat tamarind candy.”) To avoid inserting the period as a dấu nặng, hit the exit key before hitting the period. The keystrokes and result would be as follows:
me. → me.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’ve recently installed VPSKEYS and find that your usernames and/or passwords are no longer working, it may be because you have VPSKEYS activated and are typing in Vietnamese. Read step 8 above to learn where and how to deactivate it.
For All: Web Application
If it’saquick and easy method that you need, consider typing into the no-downloading-needed application found here. This application supports three different input methods: Telex, VNI, and VIQR. (An input method is simply a way of using various keys on your keyboard in order to enter the characters of a particular language.) By default, the application has all three of these input methods activated, but you can limit activation to only one of them by selecting it from the options listed a little further below the text box. Also, next to the text box is a handy keystroke chart listing the keys for entering accents according to the three different input methods. These keys are to be entered after you enter the letter you want to add an accent to. For example, if I want to add the hook-above accent or dấu hỏi to the letter o, I first type o and then type r, 3, or ?, depending on which input method I’m using. As another example, if I want to add the circumflex accent or dấu mũ to the letter o, I first type o followed by another o, 6, or ^. Lastly, you’ll need to copy and paste the text you typed into your destination document or field.
Keystrokes: Telex, VNI, VIQR
Need to learn the keystrokes for the Telex, VNI, or VIQR input methods? Here’s a chart you can use as a reference. Download it, modify it as you wish, and print! Please save trees by using the blank side of a used piece of paper, if possible. Thanks ?
Simple Telex Vietnamese Radio
Also, here’s a view of the chart:
Đánh giá [tipe]
Most of the previous postings have had some Vietnamese characters somewhere inside them. How hard is it to do this? It's piss easy. Firstly, let's get rid of one common misconception.
One of the misconceptions about Vietnamese is that you need special fonts to display it. We are talking about proprietary fonts as provided by the VNI Corporation, as opposed to preinstalled fonts like Times New Roman on Windows. This misconception may have been true in the mid 90s, but it isn't true in the 00s. Windows fonts such Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New (among others) have supported Vietnamese since Win98and Win2K. I'm happy with them.
(I cannot speak for other platforms such as Linux or MacOS. I assume that MacOS would have better support for languages than Linux - given then centralization of its development.) Still, entering Vietnamese is not as easy as entering English, where pretty much all the characters you want are on the keyboard. It is a little harder than entering German (with umlaut characters such as ü) or French (with é and è), and other European languages. But it becomes easy with practice. All you have to understand is the diacritics that this weird and wonderful language uses in much abundance.Vietnamese CharactersMany languages use diacritics - additional marks above or below letters. In the last paragraph, we saw the umlaut (two dots above the letter), the acute accent (a raising slash above the letter) and a grave accent (a falling slash below the letter). Diacritics are common with vowels in Latin alphabets, and are sometimes used with consonants as well.
English stands at one extreme: it hardly uses diacritics at all, except with the odd loan word. Vietnamese is at the other extreme - many letters use two diacritics at once. For example, the most common family name in Việt Nam is 'Nguyễn'. This makes it hard for foreigners to read and hard for many to remember. But there is method in all this madness. Each diacritic you encounter has only one purpose:
- One set indicates the type of the vowel: beet versus bet, cart versus cut, and so on.
- Another set indicates the tone: is it raising, falling, dipping or flat? Vietnamese is a tonal language. The writing style (or Quốc Ngữ) has tone built into it.
- The acute accent, known in the tongue as 'dấu Sắc'. This indicates a rising tone.
- The grave accent or 'dấu Huyền'. This indicates a shallow drop.
- The dot below or 'dấu Nặng'. This is a deep, low drop - the Marianas Trench of tones.
- Then you have the 'question mark' tone, or 'dấu Hỏi'. Think of a low dip and then a rise.
- Penultimately, you have the tilde or 'dấu Ngã'. This is similar to the 'dấu Hỏi' except that you make it creaky and tighten in larynx - well, that is if you live in Hà Nội. In Sài Gòn, the Hỏi and the Ngã sound pretty similar. However, you should distinguish them in your writing.
The final tone is its absence: 'không dấu' or no tone at all. Here, you keep the vowel flat, and by that I mean flat: no dipping or rising to intonate your emotions! Those vowels absent the 5 tonal markers are assumed to be flat in tone. That doesn't mean the absence of any other diacritics, such as the circumflex.
We must finally finish by mentioning there is an extra consonant in Vietnamese: Đ (lower case đ). This is just mentioned to get this out of the way. Don't confuse this with D and d: they are different letters, and have different sounds.
All of this may seem daunting for the Vietnamese beginner. The total range of vowels is 2 (lower case and upper case) by 6 (for the six tones) by 12 (for the 12 vowels in the language) = 144 possible vowels. Then you've got Đ and đ. How do you enter all these characters? There are two methods, as we shall see.
Entering VietnameseHow To Use Vietnamese Telex
Firstly, there's the character map method. That's basically a program that shows you all the character for a given font inside a table. One example is the Character Map (charmap.exe) program inside Windows. Microsoft Office also provides a similar utility from the 'Insert Symbol' menu command. The idea is that you click, copy and paste the characters you want to your given program. Here's a screenshot of Character Map in action:
You can use this if you want to display the odd Vietnamese character inside your file. I advise against it in the long run: it's tedious. After 10 point and clicks, you will get tired of the whole activity.
I recommend that you use a Vietnamese keyboard or keyboard driver for the task. Despite their name, they are not hardware: they are small programs that sit in your OS and convert your keystrokes into nice, lovely Vietnamese. And do I have a particular program in mind? Boy howdy, I do: Unikey. I've used it for about a year and a half without complaint. I like it so much that I've shut off rival keyboard drivers running on the same machine. The advantages of it are:
- It's free. Nice to know, isn't it?
- It's just a download away: for NT/2000/XP, for 95/98/MEor for Linux.
- Installation is simple: just unzip it and it is ready to go.
- It lacks bloat. It's a small program that does what it is does without any unnecessary feature.
- It sits on the taskbar. This makes it easy to switch between 'English' mode and 'Vietnamese' mode: just click on the icon on the taskbar.
- The user interface actually provides for English speakers, which makes it easier to understand.
(Of course, if you aren't happy with Unikey, you could look for other utilities. Look at the Vietnamese Unicode FAQs for more information. But rather than comparing all the utilities, I want one that works for me.)
SetupWhen you start up Unikey, you see the following dialogue:
What does it all mean? Fortunately, you can find out what is happening by clicking on the 'Mở rộng' button. 'Mở rộng' means expand, and that's what you need to do.
See the checkbox with 'Vietnamese interface'? Uncheck it. The whole interface will turn into English:
That makes it a lot easier to use, doesn't it? Okay, here's what I recommend you do:
- I recommend you always set the 'Character Set' to Unicode - always. A character set is basically how characters like 'ư' and 'a' are represented as numbers that computers can handle. The Microsoft Office utilities and Blogger are set to handle Unicode by default. Unicode is an international standard, so you can't go much wrong with it. The only exception to this is if you have the misfortune to use one of the old VNI Fonts from years ago. But Unicode - good.
- The 'Input method' is what keystrokes will form a character like 'ư'. I prefer TELEX, but I will give instructions for using Unikey with VNI and VIQR as well. See the next section for instructions.
- Advanced options: uncheck them all. Especially uncheck the 'Use oa', uy' (instead of o'a, u'y)'. This is an irritating preset that doesn't allow you to write 'hoà'; instead it alwayscomes out as 'hòa'. You don't want that.
- There's also the 'Help' button - which provides you 'Help' in Vietnamese. If you understand Vietnamese, it's nice to look at. If you don't, it's not of much assistance. Anyway, that's what this document is here for, isn't it?
- Finally, there's 'Auto-run UniKey at boot time'. If it's your machine, I see no problem with it. If it's someone else's, then I advise against it.
Then click on 'Close'. The program will now sit on the taskbar - unobtrusive, yet available. If you see a big 'V':
That means that it is set up to enter Vietnamese. But if you want to enter pure English, just click on the 'V' and you will see:
It's easy to toggle from one to another: left-click on the letter. And if you want to remove the program altogether: right-click on the letter, and on the resulting menu, click 'exit'.
Okay, now that it is running: what do I do? Reading the next section is a good way to start...
Input MethodsThe idea of a keyboard driver is that it makes it easy to enter desired characters using the keyboard you have. UniKey doesn't even assume you have the 'Alt' or 'Ctrl' buttons. Instead, you press a combination of letters that tend to follow the following order:
- If you want characters without diacritics, like 'a', 'b', or 'c', then type them.
- If you want characters with diacritics but no tone markers, then type the combination. For example 'dd' in TELEX will create a 'đ', and 'ow' will create a 'ơ'.
- Always add the tone afterwards.
Vietnamese Telex Chart
The following table gives the combinations for all the Vietnamese characters in lower case. If you want upper case, then use upper case letters instead. For example, 'DD' in TELEX will create 'Đ', and so on. Here are the tables:
Desired letter | TELEX | VNI | VIQR |
â | Type 'aa' | Type 'a6' | Type 'a^' |
ă | Type 'aw' | Type 'a8' | Type 'a(' |
đ | Type 'dd' | Type 'd9' | Type 'dd' |
ê | Type 'ee' | Type 'e6' | Type 'e^' |
ô | Type 'oo' | Type 'o6' | Type 'o^' |
ơ | Type 'ow' | Type 'o7' | Type 'o+' |
ư | Type 'w' or 'uw' | Type 'u7' | Type 'u+' |
Add a 'dấu Sắc' | Type a 's' | Type '1' | Type single quote '' |
Add a 'dấu Huyền' | Type a 'f' | Type '2' | Type reverse quote '`' |
Add a 'dấu Hỏi' | Type a 'r' | Type '3' | Type '?' |
Add a 'dấu Ngã' | Type a 'x' | Type '4' | Type tilde '~' |
Add a 'dấu Nặng' | Type a 'j' | Type '5' | Type period '.' |
Remove tone | Type a 'z' | Type '0' | Type '0' |
To understand this, I will provide some examples:
To Type | TELEX | VNI | VIQR |
Hai Bà Trưng | Type 'Hai Baf Trwng' | 'Hai Ba1 Tru7ng' | 'Hai Ba` Tru+ng' |
Tiếng Việt | Type 'Tieesng Vieejt' | Type 'Tie61ng Vie65t' | Type 'Tie^'ng Vie^.t' |
ĐƯỜNG | Type 'DDWOWFNG' | Type 'D9U7O72NG' | Type 'DDU+O+`NG' |
Yes, it all seems a little tedious to learn. So choose one of the methods, and practice. I admit you may need a good motivation to do this. My motivations were (a) learning Vietnamese, and (b) retyping the names of Vietnamese students that had been provided sans diacritics.
ConclusionWhat I've tried to do her is set up a tutorial for those unfamiliar with Vietnamese, and also unfamiliar with computers. Alot of this was learnt from consulting the original Vietnamese documentation, and also a lot of practice. Now if you are interested, practice as well. You may still encounter difficulties. For example:
Simple Telex Vietnamese Keyboard
- You are trying to enter Vietnamese in a font that does not have Vietnamese characters. For example, fonts like 'Georgia' and 'Garamond' do not support them. That's a shame. For the time being, stick with 'Arial', 'Times New Roman' and 'Courier New'. There are others.
- You are trying to enter Vietnamese in a pre-UNICODE 'Vietnamese' font like VNI-Times. The result looks like poo. One way around it to set the 'character set' to 'VNI'. However, I'd recommend against it, unless (a) you are printing it, or (b) you know the people you are sending the document to also have aVNI-font installed.
- There's one problem that I've had with Excel. You enter a Vietnamese word in a cell. You try to enter another word in another cell. Then the 'Auto-complete' feature tries to guess what you are entering, and make a mess of it. This has happened to me a few times. I suggest you turn 'Auto-complete' off.
- Finally, the program you are using doesn't support UNICODE at all, and cannot even understand what you are typing. For example, the main interface for the popular editor HTML-Kit cannot handle it.
But if you have a reason to learn Vietnamese, and if you are determined: go for it. I wish you the joy of discovery!
Vietnamese Telex Online
All mistakes in this document are mine.