Differences between the traditional character IMEs

[missbrokensmile]

Can anyone tell me what the difference between the three traditional character IMEs in terms of character differences - Taiwan vs. Hong Kong vs. Macao? What about keyboard input, is there one you would recommend? Does each country use different romanisation? Or is it more akin different word usage (e.g. honour in the UK, honor in the US)?

Or perhaps someone can direct me to a site that explains the differences in character sets (Singapore, PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao), keyboard input methods, etc.? Because there are so many options...

Any help would be wonderful

[jbradfor]

First, minor terminology correction. "the three traditional character IMEs" doesn't really make sense. An IME is just a program that implements a specific way to input letters/characters not found on a given keyboard. [E.g. sending a SMS in English using a mobile phone keypad may be considered an input method as well.]

What I assume you are asking is about different character sets used in Taiwan vs Hong Kong. This is a bit complicated, as there are two different aspects: first, there are a handful (?) of characters whose "official" form is slightly different (although I don't think any native Taiwanese or Hong Konger would have issues understanding both versions); this is similar to color vs colour. Second, there are many words that are different between the two; this is similar to "truck" vs "lorry", although I believe much more extreme.

Regarding romanization, this is even more tricky. There are several forms of romanization in Taiwan ([bastardized] W-G, tongyong pinyin, bopomofo [not strictly romanization, I realize[), and in Hong Kong (Yale, Jyutping). The issue is that in both places, "ad hoc" romanization is the most common. Romanization in Taiwan is, at best, a mess. I'm not a big fan of authoritative regimes, but the romanization situation on the mainland is waaaaay better than in Taiwan.

Hope that's enough to get you started with searching wikipedia.