Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to the things people ask most about POJ Composer.
How do I type a tone?
Write the tone as a digit right after the syllable: a2 → á, a7 → ā, peh8 → pe̍h. Tones 1 and 4 have no mark, so you can leave the number off. The app places the diacritic on the correct vowel for you — see the tone reference.
How do I get the dotted vowels o͘ and e͘?
Double the letter: type oo for o͘ and ee for e͘. For example oo with a tone, koo5, gives kô͘.
What about spaces, hyphens and punctuation?
They pass through unchanged. POJ Composer only converts the letter-and-number tokens it recognises, so you stay in full control of word and syllable boundaries — for instance Tai5-oan5 → Tâi-oân.
How do I copy the result?
Press the Copy button above the output, or just select the text. The output is real Unicode text, so it pastes cleanly into documents, messages, and websites.
Why does the output look right here but break elsewhere?
POJ uses combining marks (especially the o͘ dot) that many fonts position poorly or can’t show at all. This site renders output in the Charis SIL font, which handles every POJ mark. If your destination app uses a font without those marks, the characters are still correct — they just may display differently. Choosing a font like Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, or Gentium fixes it.
Which dialects does it support?
It targets Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Southern Min generally, including Taiwanese and Penang Hokkien. It also supports the Quanzhou er/ir vowels and several spelling variants — see the variants page.
Does it work offline / on my phone?
Conversion runs entirely in your browser, so once the page has loaded it works without a connection, and it’s designed to be comfortable on a phone with large tap targets for the helper buttons.
Do you store what I type?
No. The text you type and its romanisation never leave your browser and are not sent to any server. Only your display preferences are saved locally on your own device. Full details are in the privacy policy.
Is it free?
Yes. POJ Composer is free to use and supported by unobtrusive ads. See the terms and conditions.