This is the newest tool that we have. It will work on all devices as well as on the web. If you use it on a mobile device (phone or tablet) it will even do some basic predictive text.

The instructions on the site a pretty good so hop over there and get it set up.

https://keyman.com/keyboards/cim

If you can't get it working try one of the options below. 

**Alas as of Jan 2024 this keyboard is not compatible with Elan so you will need to install one of the other ones (or if none them work, the Hawaiian one)

The fastest way to get up and running on a Windows device is to turn on the Hawaiian keyboard. This will give you access to the macrons and the ʻōkina. 

Click here for the instructions. https://support.microsoft.com/en-nz/help/4496404#input_language

Māori Kuki Airani Keyboard

If you want to use a keyboard that has the proper amata symbol that we prefer  (ꞌ) you can install this one.

Download this file 

Extract it.

Open the folder and double click on the file called 

CIMw10_amd64.msi. (see this pic)

This will start the installation process,. Follow the prompts from windows and "allow" everything.

Once it's installed you need to choose it as your input keyboard in the taskbar on the bottom right. 

• If you can't extract the file you can download the uncompressed folder here. 

TO USE

To bring up the macrons, press and  hold down the right alt key and then press the vowel you want to have a macron. It's the same type of two key operation as when you use shift to get a capital letter.

For the amata press and hold down the right alt key and then press the semicolon/colon key : / ;. <ꞌ>

If you want a curly symbol press and hold down the right alt key and then press the comma key ' and you will get the ʻōkina. 

The keyman system works best for OSX (apple computers) now but the method below are provide other option is you need them. 

If you have a mac (apple) computer you will already have access to the makarona. You can access theses by pressing and holding the vowel then choosing the macron from the various options that come up. You won't have access to a stable amata symbol automatically so to get that you have two options.

1: Set up the Hawiian keybaordwhich is alrady istalled https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp1406/mac

2: Install our custom Cook Islands Māori Keyboard. 

Download this file

Then you need to move it into into a folder called "keyboard layout" that you will find in your library folder.

Then to choose it you go to your keyboard input in the preferences and select it.

TO USE 

To bring up the macrons, press and  hold down the option key and then press the vowel you want to have a macron. It's the same type of two key operation as when you use shift to get a capital letter.

For the amata press and hold down the option and then press the semicolon/colon key : / ;. <ꞌ>

If you want a curly symbol press and hold down the option key and then press the comma key ' and you will get the ʻōkina. 

The keyman system works best for IOS now but if you cant get that working try the methods below. 

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The macrons are accessible in iOS in any of the English keyboards by holding down the vowel. There is a Hawaiian keyboard that has the ʻokina readily accessible but I find this a little annoying because it also has Hawaiian auto correct and this causes me a bit of bother :). I have not yet found a good system for getting the saltillo so you might be forced to use the aphorphe in IOS (which has some very annoying side effects)

Here are some instructions 

The keyman system works best for android now but if you can't get that working there are some other options below.

Gboard or swiftkey are other options for android that I know of at this time. these can give you Hawaiian or Māori. Swiftkey is clever and can learn to spell so that's worth having a play with over time. These systems won't give you the saltillo.

The Saltillo had two major advantages:

1: It visually breaks up the words less than the curved characters do. (Speaker who are not used to reading text that has amata prefer this strongly) 

2: It is treated as a letter rather than as a diacritic by software so you can use it in spread sheets (unlike the straight apostrophe).

3: It doesn't get rearranged by "smart quotes" so you end up with half your amata backwards like you do when you use the apostrophe. 

It has one major disadvantage and that is: that is is not part of the majority of fonts at this time. It is in the "Latin Extended D" set of unicode characters and many fonts do not include this character set. This means that you have to make sure you are using a font that is FULLY unicode compliant.

If you can't manage to use the Saltillo you should use any of the other options.

The straight apostrophe looks a lot like the Saltillo as long as it doesn't get curved by the font that you use or by "smart quotes". It can also cause problems if it occurs word initially (at the beginning of a word) in some applications such as spreadsheets. This is because it is not being treated as a "letter" but as a punctuation mark.

The ʻokina is the official character used in Hawaiian and Tongan and is sometimes used in Cook Islands Māori. It is currently supported by more fonts than the Saltillo but the curved shape that is has makes text that uses the ʻokina to write the ꞌamata harder to read for some people.

The single left quotation mark displays differently depending on the font and the "smart quote" settings which can be problematic.

If you having trouble display the characters in your web browser this site should help.

Two very annoying English centric features of many operating systems and software applications are smart quotes and auto capitalisation.

Smart quotes are when you type in what you think is a straight apostrophe (so it would be fine to represent the amata) but then your software makes it curly, and depending on where it is in the word, it makes it curl the wrong way. ‘smart’ not smart:  tēta’i 

This link tells you how to turn this off. 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/smart-quotes-in-word-702fc92e-b723-4e3d-b2cc-71dedaf2f343

The problem for all Polynesian languages with auto capitalisation is the word i. Which is an extremely common word and it's a very annoying problem if the all get capitalised and we end up with text like:

Kua kai te kurī I te kurī I va’o i te ꞌare

In MS word or in whatever system you are using there will be a way to turn this function off. 

In word all you have to do is right click on it when it does it then tell it to "never auto capitalise i"