Here is a very useful website to download a program so that you can simply type pīn yīn plus the tone number and have pīn yīn and the tone symbol appear in your document. It saves you having to copy your text into a converter and then re-paste into your document. It will be useful for those who write things in pīn yīn, keep their own dictionary, or write out song lyrics etc…
Yes, it’s a handy tool. My most recent blog post, typing in Pinyin on a Windows 2000/XP system, has a few details on this and tips for installation.
(BTW, it’s Pinyin, not pin yin, and they’re tone marks, not tone symbols. 
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Cool. Now someone please find me a tone-marked pinyin IME for the Mac. Pretty please? 
Does IME mean ‘how to type pinyin so the tone marks show up over the syllables’ (sorry to be thick)? I know how to do that.
I can type it in Dimsum or Word, but I want an Input Method Editor (I think that’s what it stands for 
) that will allow me to type tone-marked pinyin directly in any program, without having to type first in Dimsum and then cut & paste into Firefox or Dreamweaver or whatever. Is that what you’re talking about?
Here’s a link to a Microsoft Word macro that changes pinyin-with-numbers to pinyin-with-accents.
http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/PINYIN/pinyin.htm
Mebbe… I’m not exactly techie. You have to enable the US extended keyboard then press:
1st alt a
2nd alt e
3rd alt v
4th alt `
works in everything I use but I don’t use dreamweaver.
I don’t know if it works with any program; but this is a Windows-based approach, not one belonging to a program that runs within Windows. So as long as the program will support the necessary font (they don’t all have all the tone marks necessary for Pinyin), I suppose it’ll work.
Most of the time, though, I just use Wenlin. Y’all do have at least the Wenlin demo, right? (Yes, there’s a Mac version, too.)
P.S.: Hey, Buttercup. Long time no see. Or are you really a new poster who just happened to use an old name?
No, I’m new. Actually, I’m an old poster with a new name.
Buttercup, I owe you a beverage of your choice. A month into the land of Mac, I was getting a little frustrated, but you’ve been a great help. 
No problem. 
Took me longer than that to figure out cos i was using the British keyboard and it only works on the US Extended Keyboard…