Quick (速成) input-code lookup. Type a Hanzi to see its Quick code instantly — the first + last Cangjie radical as letters and glyphs. Reverse-lookup too: type a code to list every matching character. Browser-only, zero tracking.
Quick (Sucheng) Input Code Lookup (速成)
How to use
Pick the lookup direction
"Char → Code" turns Hanzi into Quick codes; "Code → Chars" reverse-looks-up every character that takes a given code. Toggle with the two buttons above.
Char → Quick code
Type or paste one or more Hanzi; the tool returns each character's Quick code — 1–2 letters plus the matching Cangjie radicals (e.g. l = 中, d = 木).
Code → Hanzi (reverse)
Type a Quick code (e.g. "hd" or "a") and the tool lists every character that takes it. Quick codes are far more ambiguous than full Cangjie, so many characters share a code — they are all listed.
Read the radical key
Every letter maps to a Cangjie radical (a日 b月 c金 …). Results show both the letters and the radical glyphs, so you can check exactly which keys to press.
Quick (速成) Input-Code Lookup: First + Last Radical, Cangjie and Quick Side by Side
Quick (速成, also called "Simplified" or "Easy") is one of the most widely used shape-based input methods among Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese users, and it is derived directly from the Cangjie input method. Cangjie was created by Chu Bong-Foo in the 1970s: it decomposes every Hanzi into up to five "radicals" (Cangjie letters), keyed in the order the character is structurally drawn. Skilled Cangjie typists are extremely fast with very few collisions — but the price is memorising the full set of decomposition rules. Quick makes one clever simplification: no matter how many radicals a character breaks into in Cangjie, Quick keeps only the FIRST and the LAST radical. Almost any character then takes at most two keystrokes, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry — which is exactly why Quick has stayed popular with everyday users in HK and Taiwan. This tool lets you type any Hanzi and instantly see its Quick code (shown as both letters and the matching radical glyphs), and it also supports reverse lookup: type a Quick code and list every character that takes it.
How Quick relates to Cangjie
Quick and Cangjie share the same radicals and keyboard layout: keys A through Z each map to one radical — a 日, b 月, c 金, d 木, e 水, f 火, g 土, h 竹, i 戈, j 十, k 大, l 中, m 一, n 弓, o 人, p 心, q 手, r 口, s 尸, t 廿, u 山, v 女, w 田, x 難, y 卜, z 重. Cangjie takes all of a character's radicals (up to five); Quick takes only the first and last. For example, 中 has a single radical l (中) in both Cangjie and Quick, so its Quick code is simply l. A character whose full Cangjie sequence has three or more radicals drops everything in the middle, keeping only the head and tail. Once you internalise this "first + last" rule, you can derive the Quick code of any character straight from its Cangjie code.
"Cangjie spells the whole shape; Quick keeps only the ends." Two keys, most common characters covered.
Why reverse lookup returns so many characters
Precisely because Quick throws away the middle radicals, its collision rate (shared codes) is far higher than Cangjie's. Cangjie's full radical sequence separates almost every character cleanly, whereas Quick compresses the information down to at most two letters — so a great many different characters inevitably share one Quick code. That is why this tool's "Code → Chars" reverse lookup lists every character with the same code, the way you would page through the candidate window in a real Quick input method. It also explains why fluent Quick users rely on candidate selection: after two keystrokes the candidate window may hold a dozen same-code characters, and you press a number key to pick the one you want. To verify decompositions and radicals yourself, install the open-source RIME (中州韻 / Weasel / Squirrel) input engine and load a Cangjie or Quick schema table (Quick schemas are usually derived from the Cangjie code table) for an offline cross-check against this tool's output. Everything here runs locally in your browser — the characters and codes you enter are never uploaded, stored, or tracked. This is a pure input-method learning and reference utility, with no metaphysics or fortune-telling component whatsoever.
10 Facts about the Quick (速成) Input Method
Quick is a simplified Cangjie: it has a single rule — keep only a character's first and last Cangjie radical and drop everything in between.
Quick is also called "Simplified Cangjie"; in Hong Kong it is the "Easy" method, and it ships built-in on both Windows and macOS as a standard Chinese IME.
Quick and Cangjie share one keyboard: each A–Z key maps to a radical (a=日, d=木, l=中), so anyone who knows Cangjie can use Quick at almost zero extra cost.
Because it keeps only the head and tail, nearly any character takes just 1–2 keystrokes — the core reason it is "quick" to pick up compared with full Cangjie.
The trade-off is heavy collisions: one Quick code often maps to several or dozens of characters, so Quick almost always needs candidate selection, whereas Cangjie frequently lands a character in one shot.
Cangjie letters have nothing to do with English letters: each keyboard letter is just a label for a radical. X stands for the 難 radical, Y for 卜 — you memorise radicals, not English.
Cangjie has 24 basic radicals in four groups: philosophical (日月金木水火土), strokes (竹戈十大中), body (人心手口), and shapes (尸廿山女田難卜重).
Single-radical characters (the whole glyph is one radical, e.g. 日 a, 木 d, 中 l) have the same first and last radical, so their Quick code is just one letter.
Cangjie and Quick are both shape-based methods: you type by decomposing the glyph, with no need to know the pronunciation — handy for users weak on pinyin/Zhuyin or with differing dialect readings.
The open-source RIME engine (Weasel/Squirrel) can load Cangjie and Quick schemas, letting you use and customise the code tables offline on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Quick is a simplified version of the Cangjie input method. It reuses Cangjie's radicals and keyboard but keeps only a character's first and last Cangjie radical, dropping all the middle ones. Nearly any character then takes at most two keystrokes, making it very easy to learn — widely used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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Cangjie takes all of a character's radicals (up to five); Quick takes only the first and last. If a character decomposes into four radicals in Cangjie, Quick drops the middle two and keeps just the first and last. The result is a shorter code (at most two) but far more collisions.
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Because Quick keeps only the first and last radical and discards the distinguishing middle information, many structurally different characters collapse onto the same code. So on reverse lookup the tool lists every character for that code — exactly why a real Quick IME makes you pick from a candidate list.
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Each English letter on the Cangjie keyboard stands for a "radical". a is 日, b is 月, c is 金, d is 木, and so on. The tool shows both the letter and the radical, so you know which key to press and can also read which glyph component the code represents.
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Quick codes are looked up deterministically from a bundled Cangjie/Quick code table — the same character always returns the same result, with no randomness, no guessing and no online model. A few characters decompose slightly differently across Cangjie versions (3rd vs 5th gen); the tool follows its bundled table. If it differs from your IME, defer to the scheme you actually use (e.g. a RIME-loaded table).
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Yes. In "Char → Code" mode, paste multiple Hanzi into the box and the tool returns each character's Quick code. Non-Hanzi characters are ignored automatically.
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The bundled table covers 20,000+ common and fairly rare Hanzi, but not all of them. Extremely rare characters or some variant forms may be absent; in that case the character is flagged "not in table". For readings or meanings, use site tools like the Rare Chinese Character Reader.
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It depends. Quick is fast to learn (just first + last) and fine for light use, but has many collisions and frequent candidate selection. Cangjie demands memorising the full decomposition rules up front, but once fluent it is fast with few collisions — better for heavy typing. Many people start with Quick and graduate to Cangjie; the keyboards are identical, so switching is cheap.
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No. This is a pure input-method utility — it only does two-way lookup between Quick codes and Hanzi, with no metaphysics, character-divination or fortune component. Its sole goal is to tell you how to type a character in Quick, or which characters a given Quick code produces.
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No. All lookups run locally in your browser; the code-table file is downloaded once and cached locally, with no server calls. RECATOOLS enforces zero tracking and zero storage.
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