How to use macrons on your computer

For information about the use of macrons in Wise Group documents, check out the Wise Group writing style guide.

If you regularly write in Māori on your computer, you may need to use some additional Māori characters – ā, Ā, ē, Ē, ī, Ī, ō, Ō, ū, Ū – which aren’t easily available on a standard English keyboard.

There are a number of ways to insert these characters, but the easiest by far is to make a small change to a setting on your PC that allows special key combinations for these characters.

For instructions on adding the keyboard on a Mac, scroll down or click here.

To add the Māori keyboard layout on PC:

1. Click the Windows start button
2. Click on Settings
3. Click on Time & Language
4. Click Region & Language
5. Click the plus sign next to Add a language

Type in Maori

Click on Reo Māori

The Māori keyboard is now added to your computer. 

To switch to the Māori Keyboard

In your system tray (bottom right hand corner of your screen), there should be a new icon that says MRI. You can use this to switch your keyboard between English and Māori.

If you prefer you use your keyboard to quickly and easily switch between keyboards you can use the windows key and the spacebar to select the keyboard. Alternatively you can use Alt and Shift to switch keyboards. 

How to insert macron characters into your documents.

 When using the Māori keyboard, everything about your keyboard remains the same, except for a few special key combinations. For the most part, your ability to write or spell check in English will be unaffected.

To type an uppercase macron character: 

1. Press the tilde key (~) – generally found to the left of the number 1 key.
2. Press and hold the shift key.
3. Press the appropriate character. The character will be replaced with the macron equivalent.

 To type a lowercase macron character:

1. Press the tilde key (~) – generally found to the left of the number 1 key.
2. Press the appropriate character. The character will be replaced with the macron equivalent.

Note, macrons will only appear on vowel characters.

Common issues 

I’m using the key combinations to get the macron characters but it’s not working?

Check that you’re using the Maori keyboard by clicking the language icon in the system tray and choosing Maori. 

I don’t see the MRI icon in the system tray. 

The Māori keyboard may not be installed. You may have switched computers or the settings may not have saved. Repeat the setup process and try again.

When I write Māori words in my documents, spell checker warns me. 

Naturally, Māori words don’t form a part of the English dictionary and so those words will be marked as a potential mistake. The easiest solution is to right-click the Māori word and choose Add to dictionary. From this point on, those words will be considered a part of your custom English dictionary. Note, this only applies to your computer. If you distribute your document to others, those Maori words will appear as incorrect for those authors.

Some Māori words can be written with different macron combinations. How will Microsoft Word know when I’ve used the right one? 

You can install the language pack for Word here.  This will add the ability for Word to proof in Māori.

To add the Māori Keyboard onto a Mac: