Input methods

While Toki Pona can be typed with standard keyboard input, many tokiponists have created input methods and keyboard layouts specialized for the language.

Among the most well-known are Ajemi, Wakalito, Timeo Pochin's Toki Pona Keyboard, and jan Lepeka's Sitelen Pona Keyboard Layout, with many others being personal creations or hypothetical layouts that might not be available for public practical use.

The following list is sorted by (primary) intended writing system.

Latin script input

ASCII syllabary (jan Lentan)

ASCII syllabary keyboard layout (Desktop)

Android-based 12-key keyboard layout

In 2022, jan Lentan developed an experimental keyboard layout, inspired by jan Misali's toki pona ASCII syllabary. It is currently not available for download, either for desktop or mobile.

jan Lentan sets out the following guidelines for his system:

• None of the lowercase characters for existing letters should used.
• Syllables in the form jV use the capital version of their respective vowel.
• If Cu syllable uses a capital letter, the corresponding Ci is its lowercase version.
• If Co syllable uses a capital letter, the corresponding Ca is its lowercase version.
• The number keys 1, 2, 3, and 5 are used for wan, tu, mute, and luka, respectively (as in their first mora of the words).
• The words li and mi are mapped to J and I keys, respectively.
• The syllable lu is additionally mapped to the V key for easy accessibility.

Flick keyboard for Keyboard Designer (u/stm530)

In June 2022, u/stm530 created a flick input keyboard using the Keyboard Designer app for Android. It has key labels available in Latin, Cyrillic, and katakana, and the ability to input the aforementioned scripts, hanzi, kanji and hiragana, or sitelen pona (as UCSUR codepoints, requiring a compatible font). A "nimi pu direct input" feature lets the user quickly input words that start with the mora of the initial flick direction.

The layout must be imported into the paid tier of Keyboard Designer, which u/stm530 did not realize until after finishing work on the layout. To do so:

1. Download and install Keyboard Designer from Google Play.
2. Purchase the Extended Design Package.
3. Download the keyboard layout.
4. Open the layout in Keyboard Designer and import it.

Gboard

English Wikipedia has an article on
Gboard.

Gboard is a virtual keyboard app for Android and iOS. It lacks a Toki Pona keyboard option. To add Toki Pona words to the suggestion box, follow the instructions below:

1. Install this ZIP file (all nimi ku suli).
2. Press ⚙ Settings on your keyboard.
3. Go to Dictionary → Personal dictionary.
4. Select "All languages" or choose your preferred language.
5. Press the ellipsis (three dots) icon in the top-right corner.
6. Select "Import".
7. Locate the downloaded ZIP file and tap to import it.
8. Press "Save".

Macro pad (jan Pitaki)

In 2021, jan Pitaki designed a "[c]ute toki pona keyboard (with proper printed keys)" out of a 6×2 macro pad:

↓p	t.	k,	m:	n?	s←
l	→w	a	e	ij	ou

The leftmost red and blue keys can also be held for use as modifier keys, allowing access to the correspondingly colored corner labels. For example, p + t prints a period. Additional letters are to be handled with an input-method script, which also usually removes the need to specify j and u (for example, automatically correcting moko to moku). The red arrow labels represent → Space, ← Backspace, and ↓ Return. While not printed, all four arrow keys are on a and e.

Microsoft SwiftKey

English Wikipedia has an article on
Microsoft SwiftKey.

Microsoft SwiftKey is an alternative virtual keyboard for Android and iOS. Unlike Gboard, it supports Toki Pona. While there is not an idiosyncratic keyboard layout, it adds predictive text support.^{[for what set of words?]}

Stenopona

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More detail, full layout (if finalized?)

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Stenopona is a Toki Pona stenotype system, in development since March 2024. The left- and right-hand layouts are mirror images of each other, so that two syllables can be input with each stroke.

sitelen pona input

Various input methods have been designed for sitelen pona, some based on visual features of the writing system, and some explicitly outputting UCSUR codepoints that encode word glyphs rather than Latin letters.

Ajemi

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Typing kijetesantakalu lili pi toki pona li suwi mute using Ajemi

Ajemi is an input method editor developed by dec32 in 2024, using RIME. It is available for Windows.

As of 23 March 2024, Ajemi can be toggled to input sitelen jelo by pressing Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + 1.

Sitelen Pona Keyboard Layout (jan Lepeka)

Main article: Sitelen Pona Keyboard Layout

Keyboard layout by jan Lepeka

In 2022, jan Lepeka created a sitelen pona keyboard layout in which keys are mapped to each UCSUR codepoint. Glyphs are typed with no modifier keys, ⇧ Shift, AltGr (Linux, Windows) or ⌥ Option (macOS), or both, to access progressively rarer words.

ilo sitelen terminal keyboard

Main article: ilo sitelen

While working on a Toki Pona computer terminal, jan Inkepa designed a keyboard that combines letter keys according to the linja pi kute mute writing system, making it small enough to be used with one hand. This is combined with an IME that converts the linja pi kute mute input into sitelen pona. The edges of the keyboard include punctuation marks, a palipali modifier key, and arrow keys in an uninverted-T layout, among other text editing keys. The layout is ortholinear apart from the 2uunit ↵ (Return) key.

Number pad (u/CallMeLara)

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u/CallMeLara created a one-handed keyboard layout using a 22-key number pad and LuaMacros for key rebinding. Originally labeled in sitelen Lasina as of October 2021, it was updated to feature sitelen pona in November, with the phonetic key labels now written in cartouches, and the addition of punctuation input for ASCII transcription control (such as cartouche drawing, combined glyphs, and variant glyphs).

Toki Pona Keyboard (Timeo Pochin)

Main article: Toki Pona Keyboard

Layout of the Toki Pona Keyboard

The Toki Pona Keyboard created by Timeo San Pochin is a virtual keyboard app for Android that resembles Japanese smartphone input. Despite the sitelen pona keycaps, it inserts plain-text sitelen Lasina, which only appears as sitelen pona in fonts that support ASCII transcription.

Wakalito

Main article: Wakalito

Wakalito keyboard layout as of v. 7.0

Wakalito is a keyboard layout created by jan Likipi and kala pona Tonyu in 2022. It is based on the glyph components in sitelen pona to type words, similar to Cangjie for Chinese characters. It is available on all desktop platforms and mobile platforms.

sitelen pona pona input

supa nena Sansi

Supa Nena [Sansi] is a shape-based keyboard created by u/Identifies-Birds, based on the simplified component radicals in sitelen pona pona. It was inspired by input systems such as Cangjie (whence the name), APL syntax, Timeo Pochin's Toki Pona Keyboard, and jan Inkepa's ilo sitelen keyboard. The design decisions, such as the non-phonetic input method and the replacement of standard keyboard symbols with word glyphs, attempt to reflect a keyboard that a hypothetical Toki Pona culture would have created without Latin-script and QWERTY-layout influences. The function keys are as follows:

pinipini	Esc
niminimi	Open/close cartouche ("one press begins a cartouche, a second press ends it.")
mama	Tab ↹
anteante	Alt / ⌥ Option
wekaweka	Delete / ⌫ Backspace
openopen	⌅ Enter ("begins a program or executes a command.")
sinsin	↵ Return ("new line")
lawalawa	⌘ Command
	Space bar　 ("one press indicates the end of one word, an additional press produces a space.")

See also

• Autocorrect