Typing zones on a QWERTY keyboard for each finger taken from KTouch

History

Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City who taught typing classes, reputedly invented touch typing. On July 25, 1888, McGurrin, who was purportedly the only person using touch typing at the time, won a decisive victory over Louis Traub (operating Caligraph with eight-finger method) in a typing contest held in Cincinnati. The results were displayed on the front pages of many newspapers. McGurrin won $500 ($11,400 in 2007) and popularized the new typing method. Whether McGurrin was actually the first person to touch type, or simply the first to be popularly noticed, is disputed. Speeds attained by other typists in other typing competitions at the time suggest that they must have been using similar systems. The most common other form of typing is “hunt and peck” (or two-fingered typing) which is slower than touch typing because, instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist is required to find each key by sight and move fingers a greater distance. Many idiosyncratic styles in between those two exist – for example many people will type blindly, but using only two to five fingers and not always in a systematic way. Buffering is an example of such a style. Some of the suggested ways of improving typing speeds in touch typing are:

• Ensuring a correct posture
• Exerting only the correct amount of force required (i.e. not to bang on the keys)
• Taking frequent breaks to relax and improve accuracy

Touch typing training

Touch typing can efficiently bring an average speed typist to 60 WPM fairly quickly and at the same time increase accuracy by great amounts. Upon learning to touch type comfortable typing speed is expected to be achieved within a week, and full speed within a month by regular daily practice. Many free websites and free softwares provide easily accessed typing tutors.

Modifications of the touch typing system

In some countries a slightly different system is taught. The left little finger is used for the keys ´ 1 2, the ring finger for 3, the middle - 4, the left index finger is responsible for 5 and 6. On the right side of the keyboard: index - 7 and 8, middle - 9, ring - 0 and the little - all other keys on the right side of the upper row. This modification is important in connection with the ergonomic keyboard, which is split into two parts. Some specialized high-end computer keyboards are designed for touch typists. For example, Das Keyboard provides blank mechanical keyboards. A trained touch typist should not mind using a blank keyboard. This kind of keyboard may force hunt and peck users to type without looking.

A standard Hebrew keyboard showing both Hebrew- and Latin-script (QWERTY in this case) letters

QWERTY keyboard on a laptop of 2007

A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations (respectively) of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard.

Keyboard structure

A key labeled with only a single letter (usually the capital form) can generally be struck to type either a lower case or a capital letter, the latter requiring the simultaneous holding of the shift key, often labeled “⇧”. The shift key is also used to type the upper of two symbols on a given key, the lower being typed without using the shift key. Keyboards often have what is effectively a secondary shift key, used to type symbols beyond the two otherwise available with each key. These symbols may appear to the right of the main symbols on the keys, or they may be unmarked. This secondary shift key is marked Alt Gr or option on many systems. The common keyboard structure also includes the control and alternative (alt) keys. These, along with shift, caps lock, option, command, and the like are called modifier keys. There are also function keys, with various functions as determined by software.

Dead key

A dead key or key combination does not generate a character when struck, but modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after. On some systems, there is no indication to the user that a dead key has been struck, but in some text-entry systems the diacritical mark is displayed along with an indication that the system is waiting for another keystroke: either the base character to be marked, an additional diacritical mark, or space to produce the diacritical mark in isolation. Many languages use the Roman alphabet and have diacritically-marked letters for which unique keys do not exist on all keyboards. For example, on some keyboard layouts, the acute accent key is a dead key; in this case, striking acute accent then a results in á. Acute accent followed by space results in an acute accent in isolate form. Most modern keyboards conform to the ISO 9995 layout. This layout was first defined by the user group at AFNOR in 1984 working under the direction of Alain Souloumiac (Alain Souloumiac, Les perspectives de l’informatique, La Documentation Francaise 1983, p.72). Based on this work, a well known ergonomic expert wrote a report (Yves Neuville, Le clavier bureautique et informatique, Cedic-Natan 1985) which was adopted at the ISO Berlin meeting in 1985 and became the reference for the keyboards’ layout. In Mac OS X, many keyboard layouts employ dead keys. The U.S. Extended layout employs dead keys extensively (reached with option and option-shift) allowing a large inventory of characters to be easily typed. In the U.S. layout, the following smaller selection of dead keys appears (all reached with simply option):

The user simply types the base character after striking the dead key. For example, the key-strokes option-e and e result in the character é. In Mac OS X, pressing one of these key combinations creates the accent and highlights it, then the final character appears when the key for the base character is pressed. Some diacritically-marked Latin letters, of course, such as ŵ (used in Welsh), cannot be typed with the U.S. layout. That layout, which predates Unicode, provides access only to characters found in the legacy Mac Roman character set and does not support other diacritics, such as ˇ (caron), that are not commonly found in Western European languages (but which are commonly used in many Eastern European languages). However, the Mac OS X U.S. Extended keyboard layout, which was released after Unicode support became common, does provide access to many more diacritics. Ubuntu, a Linux distribution, has an option for a user-chosen ‘compose’ key available through its keyboard settings, offering the user a wide variety of different diacritics based on what is typed. For instance, pressing Compose / l easily produces the ł character. The user can edit the text file to produce whatever diacritics they desire based on the key combination used.

Note on keyboard layouts

The following layouts assume that the physical locations of the keys are the same as on a US 102-key PC/AT keyboard. In practice, keyboards from other countries may have keys in different locations. However, on a US 102-key PC/AT keyboard with an operating system configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently; “Dead keys” (see above) appear in red, and characters accessed using the AltGr key appear at the bottom right of the corresponding key, or in some images in blue. Another situation takes place with “national” layouts. Keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, to release the space for Ñ ñ; similarly, those for French and other European languages may have a special key for the character Ç ç . Keyboards designed for Japanese, may have special keys to switch between Japanese typing and the Roman alphabet and vice-versa; and the character ¥ instead of \. Using such keyboards for other languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the keys, because the standard keyboard layouts do not share even similar characters of different languages (see the example in the figure above). However, in some special cases (For example, typing English at the English keyboard), the image at the physical key may correspond to the character it generates. Most of the operating systems allow switching between keyboard layouts, usually those combinations involve register keys and are not used for normal operations or text entry (companies like Microsoft reserve Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift register control keys for sequential layout switching, those keys were inherited from old DOS keyboard drivers). Keyboard manufacturers usually print second alphabet on the empty part of the key for markets they sell computers or keyboards on. The second alphabet can also be added with extension products like keyboard stickers manufactured by different companies. Apple Keyboards have Command and Option keys instead of Alt and AltCr. Many Unix workstation keyboards place the Control key to the left of the letter A, and the Caps Lock key in the bottom left. This layout is often preferred by programmers as it makes the Control key easier to reach. This position of the Control key is also used on the XO laptop, although the XO does not have a Caps Lock.

QWERTY based layouts for Roman script

Although there are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Roman script, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the Q, A, Z, M, and Y keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters. While the core of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1-9 are almost invariably on the top row, keyboards differ vastly in:

• the placement of punctuation characters,
• which punctuation characters are included,
• whether numbers are accessible directly or in a shift-state,
• the presence and placement of accent deadkeys and accented characters.

QWERTY

By far the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. Keys like “enter” and “caps lock” have not been translated to the language of the keyboard in question.

Canadian Multilingual Standard

click on picture to download Frontype Canadian Multilingual keyboard

This keyboard layout is used in Canada. English-speaking Canadians mostly use the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular basis. In addition, the Canadian Multilingual Standard layout can be found on portable computers (laptops) marketed in Canada. A remarkable characteristic of the Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard is the number and variety of its shift states and dead keys, thanks to which it can be used to type many accented Latin characters, including such exotic letters as the ġ (dotted g) of Maltese or the ĵ (circumflexed j) of Esperanto. Though this keyboard lacks the caret (^) character, this is easily accomplished by typing the accent circumflex followed by a space.

Canadian French

Click on picture to download Frontype Virtual Multilingual keyboard

This keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by French-speaking Canadians. Although not as versatile as the Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard, it can be used to type all accented French characters. Of course, it allows to write English as well. It remains popular mainly because of its close similarity to the basic US keyboard commonly used by English-speaking Canadians.

Danish

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Danish Keyboard

Dutch (Netherlands)

Click on picture to download Frontype Virtual Dutch keyboard

• The Dutch keyboard layout is barely used; the majority of the Dutch use the United States (International) layout instead.

Faroese

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Faroese Keyboard

Italian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Italian Keyboard

Note:

• braces (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr and Shift pressed.

Norwegian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Norwegian Keyboard

Polish

Most typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish accentuated letters accessed directly, while practically all computers (except custom-made, e.g., in public sector and some Apple computers) use standard US layout (commonly called Polish programmers layout, in Polish: polski programisty) with Polish letters accessed through AltGr (AltGr-Z giving “Ż” and AltGr-X giving “Ź”). Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character (shift+`) acts as a dead key to type Polish diacritical marks; thus, to obtain an “ł”, one may press ~ followed by l. The tilde character is obtained with ~ and space.

Portuguese (Portugal)

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Portuguese Keyboard

Portuguese (Brazil)

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Portuguese Brazil Keyboard

Spanish (Spain)

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Spanish Keyboard

• The Spanish (Spain) keyboard layout also includes characters required for typing the Catalan language: Ç, the grave accent and inter punct (punt volat, used in l·l) at Shift-3.

Spanish (Latin America)

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Spanish Keyboard

• The Spanish (Latin America) keyboard layout is used throughout Central and South America, but the use of the Spanish (Spain) layout is also not uncommon due to many Operating Systems defaulting to the Spanish (Spain) layout when the user selects Spanish as the default language (GNU/Linux) or installing the Spanish version (Windows).

Swedish/Finnish

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Swedish Keyboard / Download Finnish Virtual Onscreen Keyboard /

Download Sami Virtual Onscreen Keyboard

UK and Ireland

.

Click on picture to download Frontype Virtual Multilingual keyboard

The United Kingdom and Ireland use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version definedin British Standard BS 4822. It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an extra key, includes £ and € signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (¬, ¦), and uses different positions for the characters @, “, #, ~, \, |. See the article British and American keyboards for details. The default keyboard layout for Ireland on Microsoft Windows (called “Irish”) makes three minor deviations from the UK norm. The keyboards have the same keys with the same markings but (1) the default use for key left of “1”, is a grave dead key (this change is also made on UK-Extended); (2) when AltGr is pressed, the apostrophe key becomes an acute dead key; and (3) AltGr+vowel produces the acute-accent form of that vowel (e.g., Alt Cr+a = á, Alt Cr+E = É). The BS 4822:1994 standard does not make any use of the AltGr key and lacks support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigns a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (¦), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacks support for Welsh orthography. Therefore, various manufacturers have modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:

• The B00 key (left of Z) shifted results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g., Microsoft Windows’ UK/Ireland keyboard layout and Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar (¦) assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g., OS/2’s UK166 keyboard layout)

• The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2’s UK166 keyboard layout, Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar (¦) (Microsoft Windows’ UK/Ireland keyboard layout)

(Hong Kong uses US and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards rather than UK and Ireland ones. See also Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong.)

United Kingdom extended

• Windows XP SP2 and later also offer a “United Kingdom Extended” keyboard layout which allows input for many languages (including Welsh, a UK language) without changing any of the allocations of frequently-used keys (the rarely-used grave accent key becomes a dead key). In particular, the apostrophe key is not changed into a dead key modifying the character generated by the next key pressed, as used by the US International layout.

The grave accent becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,or Y, generating à, è, etc. a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y with acute accent (á, é, etc.) are generated either by pressing AltGr and the relevant character key simultaneously, or AltGr and apostrophe (acting as a dead key combination) followed by the character. Some programs assign functions to the combination of AltGr and a letter, in which case the AltGr and apostrophe method must be used to generate acute accents. AltGr and 6 acts as a dead key combination to add a circumflex to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y (â, ê, etc.). The shifted 6 key generates the caret (^), which looks like a circumflex (mnemonic). AltGr and 2 acts as a dead key combination to add a diaeresis to a subsequent a,e,i,o,u,w,y,A,E,I,O,U,W,Y (ä, ë, etc.). The shifted 2 key on a UK keyboard generates the double quote (”), which looks a bit like a diaeresis (mnemonic). AltGr and hash (#) acts as a dead key combination to add a tilde (~) to a subsequent a,n,o,A,N,O (ã, ñ, etc.). The shifted # key on a UK keyboard generates the tilde character (~) (mnemonic).

US

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen US-101 Keyboard

The US keyboard layout has a second Alt key instead of the AltGr key and does not use any dead keys, and thus offers no way of inputting any sort of diacritic or accent; this makes it unsuitable for all but a handful of languages. However, on some operating systems (including Windows), the layout can be set to US-International which allows for dead keys but still uses the standard US keyboard. The right Alt key then acts as an AltGr key. On the other hand, the US or UK keyboard layout is occasionally used by programmers in countries where the keys for []{} are located in less convenient positions on the locally customary layout. U.S. keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in other English-speaking countries (e.g., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), except for the United Kingdom and Ireland, which use a British standard instead.

US-International

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen US-101 Keyboard

The US keyboard layout can be configured to type accents efficiently. This is known as the US-International layout. Using the same layout as the US keyboard, accented characters can be typed by pressing the appropriate accent key, then the letter on the keyboard in its unaccented form. Accent keys share the same key as ‘, `, “, ^ and ~. An accent key is activated by pressing it (without holding it), and next pressing the letter that requires an accent. After the two strokes, the single accented character would appear on the screen. Note that only certain letters (such as vowels and n) can have accents in this way. If one wishes to use the normal single quotation mark, caret and so on, one would press the accent key followed by the spacebar. Accented characters can be typed with the following combinations:

• ‘ the letter (é)
• ` the letter (è)
• ” the letter (ë)
• ^ the letter (ê)
• ~ the letter (ñ)

Thus, in this sense, the keys ‘, `, “, ^ and ~ are dead keys when first depressed, then become normal keys functioning in the same way as keys on the US keyboard if the spacebar is pressed. There are also alternative US-International formats, whereby modifier keys such as shift and alt are used, and the placement of the accented characters are different from the placement of their unaccented counterparts.

• The US-International keyboard layout is used in the Netherlands.
  • In The Netherlands often just a second Alt is shown instead of AltGr, but it has the same function. The standard Dutch layout is rarely used, excluding very few specialized industries.

QWERTZ

The QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.

Hungary

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen HUNGARIAN Keyboard

Germany and Austria (but not Switzerland)

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen German Keyboard

The PC keyboard layout commonly used in Germany and Austria is based on one defined in an old (October 1988) version of the German standard DIN 2137-2. The characters ² ³ { [] } \ @ € | µ ~ are accessed by holding the Alt Gr key and tapping the other key. The Alt key on the left will not access these additional characters. The accent keys ^ ` ´ are dead keys: press and release an accent key, then press a vowel key to produce accented characters (ô, á, ù, etc.). One problem with German keyboards when used to type English text is that users frequently mistype a spacing accent instead of an apostrophe (e.g., it´s or it`s instead of correctly it’s). Note that the semi-colon and colon are accessed by using the Shift (large arrow up) key. Abbreviations on a German keyboard: Strg = Steuerung – control (Ctrl); Alt Gr = Alternate Graphics (Right Alt, or Strg+Alt (Ctrl+Alt) keys simultaneously); Einfg = Einfügen – insert (Ins)(“add in” – insert); Entf = Entfernen – delete (Del); Bild↑ = Bild auf – page up (PgUp); Bild↓ = Bild ab – page down (PgDn); Pos 1 = Position eins – Home (“position one”). Druck\S-Abf stands for Print Screen, Rollen (to roll) is Scroll Lock, and Pause\Untbr (Pausing, Unterbrechen = break, stop) is Break. The numeric keypad sometimes has the multiplication sign (×) instead of the asterisk (*). Note too, that the DIN sets an uncommon behaviour of Caps Lock which is correctly described as Shift Lock. When pressed, all keys are shifted, including numbers and special characters. To release, you need to press the Shift key below Shift Lock (as on mechanical typewriters). The sign on the key is a large arrow down, on newer designs pointing to an uppercase A key. In IT, an alternative behavior is often preferred, usually described as “IBM”, which is the same as Caps Lock on English keyboards – only letters are shifted, and hitting Caps Lock again releases it.

Romanian in Romania and Moldova

The current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a “primary” one and a “secondary” one.

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Romanian Keyboard

Romanian keyboard layout (primary)

The “primary” layout is intended for more traditional users that learned long ago how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The “secondary” layout is mainly used by programmers and it doesn’t contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The „secondary” arrangement is used as the default one by the majority of GNU/Linux distributions. There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in all Microsoft Windows versions before Vista: - “S with comma below” (Unicode 0218) – incorrectly implemented as “S with cedilla below” (Unicode 015E) - “s with comma below” (Unicode 0219) – incorrectly implemented as “s with cedilla below” (Unicode 015F) - “T with comma below” (Unicode 021A) – incorrectly implemented as “T with cedilla below” (Unicode 0162) - “t with comma below” (Unicode 021B) – incorrectly implemented as “t with cedilla below” (Unicode 0163)

Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (Latin) and Slovene

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Bosnian Latin Keyboard / Download Virtual Onscreen Bosnian Cyrillic Keyboard

The Bosnian, Croatian, Slovene and Serbian (latin) keyboard layout has five additional special characters Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. This keyboard layout was standardized in the 1980s in Yugoslavia. Characters Ć and Đ are not part of the Slovene alphabet however they are used for historical reasons and for writing words in the closely-related Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian languages. The Ž is on the right side of the Ć key on keyboards which have a longer Backspace key, and the usual inverted L shaped Enter key.

Swiss German, Swiss French, Swiss Italian, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg

Click on picture to download Frontype Virtual Multilingual keyboard

The layout of the Swiss keyboard is designed to allow easy access to frequently used accents of the French, German and Italian languages. The difference between the Swiss German (sg) and the Swiss French (sf) layout is that the German variety has the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) accessible without shift, while the French version has the French accented characters (é, à, è) accessible without shift. The actual keyboards have the keys engraved for both variations, the difference is only in the driver setting. There is no separate driver setting for Swiss Italian. Furthermore, Swiss German does not include the ß used in Germany and Austria. Whilst the German keyboard uses German-language abbreviations (e.g. Strg for German Steuerung instead of Ctrl for Control), Swiss keyboards use the English abbreviations as a neutral solution, as they are used for all the national languages of Switzerland. Luxembourg does not have a keyboard layout of its own. Public education uses the Swiss-French keyboard, while the banking sector prefers the Belgian layout. Other places use either, or the US layout. Liechtenstein, which also has no keyboard layout of its own, uses the Swiss German keyboard.

AZERTY

The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some neighbouring countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:

• A and Q are swapped,
• Z and W are swapped,
• M is moved from the right of N to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard),
• The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters.

The French AZERTY keyboard also has special characters used in the French language, such as ç, à, é and è, and other characters such as &, “, ‘ and §, all located under the numbers. Some French people use the Canadian Multilingual standard keyboard. The Portuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout may also be preferred, as it provides all French accents (aigu, grave, tréma, tilde, circumflex, cedilla, and also quotation marks «») and its dead-letter option for all the accent keys allow for easy input of all the possibilities in French and most other languages (áàäãâéèëêíìïîóòöõôúùüû). Ç is, however, a separate key, as can be seen above.

French

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen French Keyboard

Belgian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Belgian Keyboard

The Belgian AZERTY keyboard was developed from the French AZERTY keyboard, but some adaptations were made in the 1980s. All letters remain in the same positions as on the French keyboard, but some signs (?, !, @, -, _, +, =, and §) are in different locations.

QZERTY

The QZERTY layout is used mostly, if not exclusively, in Italy, where it is very common on typewriters. Computer keyboards are usually QWERTY, although non-alphanumeric characters vary.

• Z and W are swapped
• M is moved from the right of N to the right of L, as in AZERTY

Non-QWERTY keyboards for Roman scripts

There are also keyboard layouts that do not resemble QWERTY very closely, if at all. These are designed to reduce finger movement and are claimed by some proponents to offer higher typing speed along with ergonomic benefits. Some languages use the Roman script but with non-QWERTY-based keyboard layouts, such as Latvian and Turkish (the majority of Turkish keyboards are QWERTY, though the “Turkish-F keyboard layout” is older and said to be better suited to the language).

Dvorak

This is the best known alternative to QWERTY, also known as the American Simplified Keyboard, ASK layout. (It was named after its inventor, Dr. August Dvorak, not the key order). There are also adaptations for languages other than English, and single handed variants. Dr. Dvorak’s original layout had the numerals rearranged, but the present-day layout has them in numerical order. An interesting historical note is that the Dvorak layout’s home row contains the same letters (except for R) as the main row of the historic Blickensderfer typewriter, although in a different sequence ( D H I A T E N S O R ).

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Dvorak Keyboard

Turkish

The Turkish language uses the Roman alphabet, and a dedicated keyboard layout was designed in 1955 by Erim Tuna. During its design, the Turkish Language Academy (TDK) investigated letter frequencies in Turkish and used this statistical basis to design the Turkish-F keyboard. It provides a balanced distribution of typing effort between the hands – 49% for the left hand and 51% for the right.

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Turkish Keyboard

Besides the Turkish-F keyboard, the QWERTY keyboard is used on most computers in Turkey. F keyboards are mostly used in official places like Registry of Births or municipalities.

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Turkish Keyboard

Other original layouts

Several other alternative keyboard layouts exist, such as the Maltron, Colemak, Asset and Arensito layouts, designed with various principles in mind such as minimising finger movement, maximising hand alternation or inward rolls (where successive letters are typed moving towards the centre of the keyboard), minimising changes from QWERTY to ease the learning curve, and so on; however, none of them are in widespread use, and many of them are merely proofs of concept. The designer of Colemak reports that his layout has been downloaded 1600 times:

Keyboard layout design software

Programs such as the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and KbdEdit make it very easy for users to create their own layouts or modify existing ones to suit their own typing patterns and needs. Kiwi is a program where user preferences can be applied to adjust which of the aforementioned principles are applied and to what extent to generate a custom keyboard layout. Some high end keyboards such as the Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard allow users total flexibility to reprogram keyboard mappings at the hardware level.

Keyboard layouts for non-Roman alphabetic scripts

Some keyboard layouts for non-Roman alphabetic scripts, most notably the Greek layout, are based on the QWERTY layout, in that glyphs are assigned as far as possible to keys that bear similar-sounding or appearing glyphs in QWERTY. This saves learning time for those familiar with QWERTY. This is not a general rule, and many non-Roman keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch. All non-Roman computer keyboard layouts have the capacity to be used to input Roman letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in URLs or names. This may be done through a special key on the keyboard devoted to this task, or through some special combination of keys, or through software programs that do not interact with the keyboard much.

Arabic

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Arabic Keyboard

The keyboard above has an Arabic AZERTY layout commonly found in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, Arabic countries in North Africa that were formerly French colonies.

Armenian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Armenian Keyboard

Greek

As seen here, the Greek layout is merely a transliteration of the U.S. layout, with a few minor exceptions (the semicolon/colon key in Greek is where the Q key is in English; Greek has no active letter representing Q.

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Greek Keyboard

Hebrew

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Hebrew Keyboard

Russian

Download Russian Virtual Keyboard / Загрузить русскую наэкранную клавиатуру

Ukrainian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Ukrainian Keyboard

Bulgarian

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Bulgarian Keyboard

Devanagari

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Hindi Keyboard / Gujarati keyboard / Marathi keyboard / Nepali keyboard / Punjabi keyboard / Sanskrit keyboard / Telugu keyboard / Tamil keyboard /

Many different layouts exist for Devanāgarī. See Devanagari for additional configurations.

Thai

Click on picture to download Virtual Onscreen Thai Keyboard

The more infrequently used characters are accessed by the Shift key. Despite their wide usage in Thai, western numbers are not present on the main setion of the keyboard. Instead they are accessed via the numeric keypad. The backtick (`) key is blank, because this key is typically used to switch between input languages.

Khmer

East Asian languages

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IMEs, due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit all these possibilities into a normal QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters. In general, first the range of possibilities is narrowed down (most often by entering the desired character’s pronunciation), then, if there remains more than one possibility, selecting the desired ideogram either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using heuristics to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may sound clumsy, East Asian input methods are today sufficiently sophisticated that, for both beginners and experts, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing English. In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using Hepburn romanization or Kunrei-shiki romanization. There are several kana-based typing methods. See also Japanese language and computers. Chinese has the most complex and varied input methods. Characters can be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Hanja in Korean) or by structure. Most of the structural methods are the most difficult to learn, but they are extremely fast for experienced typists, as they do away with the need for selecting characters from a menu. For a detailed treatment, see Chinese input methods for computers. There exist a variety of other, slower ways a character may be entered. If the pronunciation of a character is not known, the selection can be narrowed down by giving its component shapes, radicals, and stroke count. Also, many input systems include a “drawing pad” permitting “handwriting” of a character using a mouse. Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its encoding number (e.g. Unicode). In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Korean is typed the same way as Western languages. There are two major kinds of keyboard layouts: dubeolsik and sebeolsik. Dubeolsik, based on the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels (jamo) are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for someone who understands the Korean alphabet Hangul. Each jamo is assigned to a single key. As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of jamo, there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so this grouping is done seamlessly by the computer, with the result that Korean can be typed in the same way as English or any other alphabetical language.

Chinese

Chinese (traditional)

Computers in the Republic of China (Taiwan) often use Zhuyin (bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with Cangjie method key labels, as Cangjie is the standard method for speed-typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in lexicographical order, top-to-bottom left-to-right.

The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard: Zhuyin (upper right); Cangjie (lower left); and Dayi (lower right). In Hong Kong, both Chinese (Traditional) and US keyboards are found. Japanese keyboards are occasionally found, but UK keyboards are rare. See also British and American keyboards, Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong A Chinese (Traditional) keyboard has a US layout with Chinese input method labels printed on the keys. These keyboards can be used for Roman characters, provided that US keyboard layout is selected in the operating system.

Chinese (simplified)

Keyboards used in the mainland of the People’s Republic of China typically use a US keyboard and input Chinese characters using Hanyu pinyin, which represents the sounds of Chinese characters using Latin letters. See the section on Chinese languages above, and also Chinese input methods for computers.

Hangul (for Korean)

Dubeolshik

Dubeolshik (두벌식) is the most common Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. Pressing the Ha/En (한/영) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and English. There is another key to the left of the space bar for Hanja input (not shown in picture). If using a standard 104-key keyboard, the right Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja key. Alternate keyboard styles exist, such as those used by IBM mainframes, but these are rarely used. Consonants occupy the left side of the layout, while vowels are on the right.

Sebeolsik 390

Sebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390) was released in 1990, hence its name. It is based on Dr. Kong’s earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols are available in Hangul mode. Numbers are placed in three rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right (shown green in the picture), and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left (shown red). Some consonant clusters are not printed on the keyboard; the user has to press multiple consonant keys to input some consonant clusters, unlike Sebeolsik Final. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.

Sebeolsik Final

Sebeolsik Final (세벌식 최종) is another Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. Numbers are placed on two rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right, and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left. Vowels are in the middle. All consonant clusters are available on the keyboard, unlike the Sebeolsik 390 which does not include all of them. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.

Sebeolsik Noshift

Sebeolsik No shift is a variant of sebeolsik which can be used without pressing the shift key. Its advantage is that people with disabilities who cannot press two keys at the same time will still be able to use it to type in Hangul.

Japanese

JIS layout, with Japanese kana in addition to a QWERTY style layout. For entering Japanese, the most common method is entering text phonetically, as romanized (transliterated) kana, which are then converted to kanji as appropriate by an input method editor. It is also possible to type kana directly, as input to the conversion step. The extra keys in the bottom row, and the changed keys in the leftmost column, control various aspects of the conversion process and select different modes of input. For more details, see the section on East Asian languages above, also the articles Japanese language and computers, Japanese input methods, and Language input keys.

Tibetan

The Chinese National Standard on Tibetan Keyboard Layout standardizes a layout for the Tibetan language. The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is Windows Vista. The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia