Copy and Paste characters.

Can anyone help??? I am OK with Pinyin but cannot read characters (and do not intend to learn). However I wish to communicate with Chinese friends who cannot speak or read english. I can, via the MDGB website, type Pinyin and produce characters but cannot copy and paste to MS word. (I just get garbage) I do not have the original XP disc so when I go to load Asian languages it calls for the origina disc. I dn't know if that will help even if I get a disc. SO, can anyone offer advice how I can copy and paste to MS Word?

If you enter your Pinyin in this form "Ni3 xi3huan1 shen2me, jiu4 ke3yi3 zuo4 shen2me", with numbers instead of tone marks, it may copy and paste as you wish.

Hi JCollett, thank you for you post on the Rocket Chinese Forum. Check out the url below and try to download it onto your computer: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=deb6731a-ca36-47a3-b4a0-2a1d19eefa05 I hope it helps! :)

Thanks for the suggestion, but it was Barry, not me, who had the problem. I merely suggested a trivial solution. Thanks anyway, but the web page you suggested is, like so much on the internet, no use whatsoever to a Macintosh user. JC