--- title: Te Kete Pōtae description: Historical document to assist organisations create macrons on computers and on the web representing te reo Māori. url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/te-kete-potae/ markdown_url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/te-kete-potae.md type: post slug: te-kete-potae author: Karaitiana Taiuru published: 2005-08-08T22:55:56Z modified: 2026-11-08T22:56:22Z language: en-NZ taxonomies: category: - Te Reo Māori word_count: 690 tokens: 1116 --- # Te Kete Pōtae Te Kete Pōtae is a resource and policy framework created in 2025 and republished as HTML below. For many years the written Māori has relied on the use of macrons to distinguish between short and long vowels. Language experts recommend the use of the macron and this has become a standard  for written Māori. Due to technological impediments the macron was never able to be created correctly in computers until recently when a Wellington company used the German umlauts and a specialised font to make a macron appear on screen. Without the special font an umlaut is displayed. Several years ago a worldwide organisation called the Unicode Consortium publicly released a number of character sets that would display most languages of the world provided a special keyboard (software) was used. Included in those character sets was a set for Māori (UTF-8 Unicode) to create macrons. An individual and several companies created keyboards for Māori to create macrons using the new Unicode (UTF-8) macron. Microsoft New Zealand with its parent company Microsoft Corporation (America) publicly released a default NZ Māori keyboard for Māori to implement macrons. As a result NZ Maori will now join the multiple other default keyboards including China, Japan, Spanish et al. Overview Recently Microsoft announced the release of a NZ Maori keyboard for Windows 2000 and XP. http://www.microsoft.com/nz/hardware/keyboard/maori/default.aspx The keyboard uses Unicode as the default macron. This creates three possible minor issues. What do organisations do with existing documents that implements ANSII (two dots/umlaut) macrons ? Will the organisation computers read Unicode macrons. How to implement Unicode macrons throughout the organisation. Implementation of electronic Macron Policy An IT Audit of hardware and software to ascertain which character set to create macrons will be the corporate macron. Soft/hardware that is not compatible should be investigated to ascertain if it has a driver that will render Unicode macrons. Upon completion of the audit you will have decided on which character set you will use. IF Unicode Step 1: Remove all Māori fonts from computers and remove Māori umlaut keyboards (if applicable). Step 2: Install the default NZ Māori keyboard from Microsoft (or other keyboard) on all machines Step 3: A Māori spell checker should be considered at this stage. Step 4: Nominate a Corporate font for external communications. Step 5: Provide all staff with documentation on how to create macrons with the new keyboard. Step 6: Offer tools to convert old documents from Umlauts to Unicode macrons. Free tools are available from Refer to next section for conversion tools. Step 7: Ensure Helpdesk staff are knowledgeable of macron issues. IF Umlaut macrons Step 1: Make a Māori font the Default Font in all applications and nominate that font the Corporate Font for all external communications. Step 2: Provide Staff with documentation to ensure that all their documentation is using macrons and not umlauts. Conversion Tools For Microsoft Word documents and web sites there are freely available tools as seen below. For other applications the “Edit|Replace All “feature of your applications is most suitable to convert character sets. Conversion Tools for Microsoft Documents This following tool will create a toolbar in Microsoft Word that will convert all umlaut macrons into Unicode macrons [http://www.maorispellchecker.net.nz]. Please ensure you have deleted/ deselected relevant Māori fonts before using this tool. If it does not work goto the menu Tools|Macro|Macro Security and select medium security. Conversion Tools for Web Sites This tool will convert ANSII macrons into Unicode macrons using numeric code for we pages [http://www.maorispellchecker.net.nz]. Questions and Answers Q. Nothing happens when i type a Unicode macron. A. Make sure you can use macrons in another application – if yes – the application you are using is not Unicode compatible. You will need to use ANSII macrons. Refer to the Software section for a keyboard driver. Q. I see squares or other symbols instead of Unicode macrons. A. You probably have a Maori font selected. Q. Do you have a list of applications that support Unicode. A. If you copy the Unicode macrons from here and paste them into your application and if you can see macrons then your application can view Unicode macrons.