An input method editor (IME) is a program or operating system component that allows computer users to enter characters and symbols not found on their keyboard. This, for instance, allows the user of a Western keyboard to input Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indic characters.

It is also called an input method environment.

Terms

The term IME originated in the Microsoft Windows operating system. Other operating systems may have a different name for the same idea, for example:

in Mac OS, it is called an input method;

in MS-DOS, it is called an input method (Chinese) or an FEP (Japanese);

in the X Window System, it is typically called an input method (and the specific built-in implementation of X11's input method support is called XIM, short for X input method; however, support for input methods are also provided by input method modules in various other parts of the system including GTK+ and Qt).

Some sources state that front end processor was an equivalent term to input method editor, for Unix.

Although originally coined for CJK computing, the term is now sometimes used generically to refer to a program to support the input of any language. To illustrate, in the X Window System, the facility to allow the input of Latin characters with diacritics is also called an input method.

Relationship between the input method and input method editor

While the term input method editor was originally used by Microsoft Windows, its use has now gained acceptance in other operating systems, particularly when it is vital to distinguish between interface and implementation of input methods, or among the input method itself, the editing functionality of the program or operating system component providing the input method, and the general support of input methods in an operating system. This term has, for example, gained general acceptance on the GNU/Linux operating system; it is also used on the Mac OS.

The term input method typically refers to a specific way to use the keyboard to input a specific language, for example the Cangjie method, the pinyin method, or the use of dead keys.

On the other hand, the term input method editor typically refers to the actual program that allows an input method to be used (for example MS New Pinyin, PRIME, or SCIM), or the actual editing area that allows the user to do the input. It can also refer to a character palette, which allows any Unicode character to be input individually.