Mandarin Chinese characters input

Ask Fedora
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1

I would like to use my keyboard to write mandarin chinese characters, but I can’t find a setting and there is no guidance on the wiki. Can anybody help me? I would like to have, like in Windows, the possibility to just switch between different keyboard layouts

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I guess you should take a look at the ibus packages.

3

I have a page on Japanese, not Chinese, but the procedure is almost the same, at Inputting Japanese in Linux and some BSDs. It focuses mostly on fcitx, rather than ibus, but if using Gnome, ibus is probably easier. Type language in the searchbox, and it should give you a choice of languages to add. With Gnome, if I remember correctly, at that point, you have to click keyboard, and choose your input method. I give a bit more explanation on the page mentioned above, under the CentOS.8x-9x section. (For most of it, I cover fcitx, which I prefer when not using Gnome). I mention anthy and kkc, but you would need pinyan or similar for Chinese.

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4

It depends on which framework (e.g. ibus, fcitx) and Chinese input method (e.g. pinyin, zhuyin, cangjie, wubi) you want to use.

Fedora Workstation / GNOME uses ibus framework by default. ibus-libpinyin and ibus-libzhuyin should be installed by default. There are other IME like ibus-rime, ibus-chewing.

On GNOME you should find the keyboard layouts in Settings.

There is also fcitx framework as mentioned, with multiple IME options. fcitx5-chinese-addons is probably the commonly used one for pinyin.

I18N/InputMethods - Fedora Project Wiki (might be outdated, check the ibus and fcitx5 pages too)

Localization/Chinese - ArchWiki (the table should be helpful. Package names might not be exactly the same as Fedora, but you can use dnf search)

Maybe you can search chinese-simplified chinese-traditional tags as well.

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@spool97 if you’re on KDE Plasma and want to write in Chinese, please refer to my settings I use for Korean/Japanese.

  • Go to Kickoff menu at the bottom of your Plasma Workspace
  • Settings
  • Input method selector (default to IBus in KDE)
  • IBus Preferences
  • Input method
  • Select input method (Add one from Intelligent pinyin, New pinyin, Bofomofo)
  • Log out and relogin
  • Click IBus panel logo on task manager (bar - normally low-right corner)
  • Check what keyboard shortcut is to change languages (Your default language to Chinese and back)

Please note basic system fonts are installed with language selection, so you don’t have to install personal fonts.

IBus Preferences setting - screenshot
Screenshot_20230429_182359

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Thank you, this made it work and was by far the easiest solution! The others were all great solutions, too, this just worked best with my KDE setup :slight_smile: Thanks everyone!