An accented Vietnamese letter consists of a base letter followed by at least one diacritical mark (dấu phụ):
For đ the base letter is d,
For Ð the base letter is D
For all other accented vowel the base letter is the corresponding vowel without accent mark. For instance, the base letter of ô is o, of ế is e.
If you want to type Vietnamese text, you should set up WinVNKey as follows:
To obtain Vietnamese letters with diacritical marks you first type the base letter , then the appropriate keys representing the diacritics as listed below:
DIACRITIC KEY TYPING EXAMPLE DISPLAY
breve ( a(n na(n ăn năn
horn + bo+ vo+ bơ vơ
circumflex ^ a^n nha^n ân nhân
acute ' ca' cá
grave ` ha`nh hành
hook-above ? cha? chả
tilde ~ su+~a sữa
dot-below . thi.t thịt
d bar d Ddà la.t Ðà lạt
The diacritic symbols above are defined in the Vietnamese Quoted Readable specifications, also known as VIQR standard or Vietnet convention. The VIQR specs were defined in 1992 by the Vietnamse Standardization Working Group, commonly known as the Viet-Std group. WinVNKey provides a user interface for you to
This VIQR standard is intended to be as simplest as possible so that everyone can remember it easily. Because WinVNKey version 4 supports more than one typing method, this method is called "VIQR - Simple" to distinguish it from other VIQR variants.
To separate a true punctuation mark from a base letter, the VIQR standard uses the backslash. For example,
Anh ddi dda^u\?
Because VIQR marks are graphically suggestive of the Vietnamese accent marks, it is easy for human to read text in VIQR format when the text cannot be sent and displayed in true Vietnamese such as email, news on the Internet. But using the VIQR format as a means to help type Vietnamese in Windows application is cumbersome. In fact, although simple, the VIQR standard method is inconvenient in that it requires many keystrokes and finger movements to type certain accent marks. For instance, of the eight diacritics five require the user to press a shift key and at least three are in conflict with regular usage of punctuation marks (acute, hook-above, and dot-below).
Thus WinVNKey allows users to customize diacritics by using whatever letters or symbols are easy for them to remember and to use.
They can use 1 for the acute accent, 2 for the grave accent, etc. This style was first introduced by VNI and is commonly referred to as the VNI method.
They can type aa for â, ee for ê, etc. This style is called "fast accent mark" because the users repeat the same key stroke without moving their fingers around.
A number of typing methods are predefined in Main control panel → Typing Method. These methods also define $$ for the Vietnamese currency symbol ₫, which is available in the Unicode character set only. To obtain the true sequence $$, use the backslash to separate them, i.e., $\$.