Note: This article assumes you have Japanese support enabled. If you don't, click here for a great guide on enabling it. Maybe I'm the only one that went this long without finding these, but there are a few really nifty keyboard shortcuts you can use to switch languages and input methods in windows XP, even if you don't have a Japanese keyboard.
| Keyboard shortcut | Effect in Japanese mode |
| ALT-SHIFT | Cycle through available languages |
| ALT-CAPS_LOCK | Switch to katakana input mode |
| CTRL-CAPS_LOCK | Switch to hiragana input mode |
| ALT-~ (tilde) | Cycle between kana and direct input mode |
Basically, to type in Japanese without having to click the language bar, just hit Control + Shift to turn on Japanese, then Control + ~ to turn on Hiragana. After that, you can switch between English and Hiragana quickly with Control + Shift.
More fun tricks:
| Keyboard shortcut | Effect in composition mode |
| Enter | Accepts the current text as typed. If you keep typing, only the new text will be in composition mode. Further keyboard shortcuts will only affect that text. |
| F6 | Converts to full-width hiragana |
| F7 | Converts to full-width katakana |
| F8 | Converts to half-width katakana |
| F9 | Converts to full-width alphanumeric |
| F10 | Converts to half-width alphanumeric |
| Spacebar | Converts to the first kanji reading, based on your selected bias |
| Spacebar x2 | Displays the candidate window for further kanji specification ( |
(Thanks to Us from Moving2Thailand for the tables. He has a much more detailed guide on his site, including instructions for Windows 2000 and Vista, so go check it out.)
