Zhuyin IME setting to make tones optional When I type Chinese via a Pinyin IME, I can write "nihao" to get "你好". Writing out "ni3hao3" is not required.

But when I try to write "ㄋㄧㄏㄠ", the IME interprets this as "ㄏㄧㄠ". Basically I'm forced to type out the tone for every single character: "ㄋㄧˇㄏㄠˇ" before the IME will give me "你好", and I find this too cumbersome.

Is there some kind of setting to change this IME behaviour? If there's an IME for Windows that supports this, I be happy to learn about it.

Side note: I know that Linux Zhuyin IMEs support this "optional tone" behaviour, and I was quite surprised to find that Windows Zhuyin IMEs are so pedantic by default.
At least on Windows 7 you can configure the New Phonetic IME to not require tones, although you will still need to press the space bar to separate characters.


Go to Control Panel - Region and Language - Keyboards and Languages - Change Keyboards
Choose the New Phonetic IME and click Properties
On the Advanced tab, switch the "Toneless" option to ON