What is the easiest way to type Chinese characters on a western keyboard?

So far I've always submitted handwritten assignments and did not have the guts to tackle a letter to 'n mate in Chinese, but its time for change. I've googled it and quickly scanned the results, but couldn't find a satisfactory solution. Pls note: the key to the problem is "quickly scanned the results" :D

The Skritter help recommends http://pinyinjoe.com/.
e. g. http://pinyinjoe.com/pinyin/pinyin_setup.htm

My choice is 搜狗拼音输入法, it's ubiquitous in China: http://pinyin.sogou.com/

There's also another system where they don't type pinyin (or zhuyin, or wade giles, or whatever). It seems very random. Like "jj" might translate as "知道“ or aaa might translate as "还不如", or something. I completely fail to understand it.

I just use the built in mac one. It's pretty good, and fast.

I use Google's pinyin typing software. It was recommended to me by a former teacher of mine. I was using the one built into Windows before that.

I also use Google pinyin.

There are also Caijing methods, which require you to break down the character into "radicals" which are mapped out on the keyboard. I haven't used it, but it's an option if you don't want pinyin.

I changed the Windows language settings to Chinese. You write pinyin (without tonemarks, that is) and it comes up with suggestions for characters

Yep, vastly prefer the Google one.

http://www.google.com/ime/pinyin/

Some people swear by 搜狗 and that is hugely popular in China. I find it kind of nasty, each to their own :)

Both the 搜狗 and 谷歌 IMEs will sync to the cloud meaning your word list is shared when you use it on any computer.

One tip, the Windows keys to switch input languages I found to be a huge pain in the arse. You can, of course, use other software to bind to those keys. I used Logitech's preferences to set a side button my mouse to switch between keyboards.

It may not bother you, but if you switch a lot this definitely makes it faster.

Thanks guys! Seems I'll have to try some different options.

I was fine with the MS version, but I've been on google pinyin (谷歌拼音) for a while, and I like it better, if only because it shows up a bit bigger so you can see what you're typing more clearly. Personally, I find ctrl+space (default option) to be a great IME-switching key combo - easier for me than assigning a mouse button, because that means moving my hand over to the mouse every time I want to switch input methods, but to each his own.

switching using alt-space drives me up the wall. the space bar toggles it as well but still stays in chinese mode.

time to try google pinyin... what user data are they collecting off this? google only does good my ass

In the end the least irritating way I found on Windows was google pinyin with alt+numbers for certain settings. OSX implementation is seriously better. Any key combo is fine (I use cmd x), and there's no lag switching...

You don't have to have it sync if you don't want Neil. It's just an option.

I particularly love the fact it syncs to the pinyin IME on android handsets.

Lurks, I do that too :-)