Halfwidth Katakana Ti

Choose Half-width Katakana; ﾁ is the narrow form of チ.

On Microsoft Japanese IME, F8 converts the current input to half-width Katakana, as of 2026. First enter or convert the kana, then use the shortcut.

The recognizable computer-era form belongs to JIS C 6220-1969, later renamed JIS X 0201. It encoded an existing katakana letter in a compact form.

Why was half-width katakana made?

It fit Japanese kana into single-byte systems.

JIS X 0201 set aside a single-byte area for katakana and punctuation when coding space and compatibility with existing equipment mattered. Dakuten and handakuten—the marks that voice some kana—were separate characters, as in ﾊﾟﾌﾞ.

The half-width display convention took shape when JIS X 0201 kana met fullwidth JIS X 0208 in Shift JIS. As of 2026, some Japanese financial systems still request half-width kana in name fields.

Should you type ﾁ or チ?

Use チ for ordinary Japanese; use ﾁ when a field requires it.

Use ﾁ to match an existing half-width string or a destination that explicitly requests that width. As of 2026, ISO-2022-JP does not support half-width kana, so チ is the safer choice for that email encoding.

“Half-width” describes a compatibility relationship, not guaranteed pixel dimensions. Fonts and layout systems can draw the character at different visible widths.