QWERTY
QWERTY (
History
The QWERTY layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by
The first model constructed by Sholes used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically as shown below:[1]
- 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M
Sholes struggled for the next five years to perfect his invention, making many trial-and-error rearrangements of the original machine's alphabetical key arrangement. The study of
In November 1868 he changed the arrangement of the latter half of the alphabet, N to Z, right-to-left.[3]: 12–20 In April 1870 he arrived at a four-row, upper case keyboard approaching the modern QWERTY standard, moving six vowel letters, A, E, I, O, U, and Y, to the upper row as follows:[3]: 24–25
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - A E I . ? Y U O , B C D F G H J K L M Z X W V T S R Q P N
In 1873 Sholes's backer, James Densmore, successfully sold the manufacturing rights for the Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer to E. Remington and Sons. The keyboard layout was finalized within a few months by Remington's mechanics and was ultimately presented:[2]: 161–174
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - , Q W E . T Y I U O P Z S D F G H J K L M A X & C V B N ? ; R
After they purchased the device, Remington made several adjustments, creating a keyboard with essentially the modern QWERTY layout. These adjustments included placing the "R" key in the place previously allotted to the period key. Apocryphal claims that this change was made to let salesmen impress customers by pecking out the brand name "TYPE WRITER QUOTE" from one keyboard row is not formally substantiated.
The modern ANSI layout is:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] \ A S D F G H J K L ; ' Z X C V B N M , . /
The QWERTY layout became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, the first typewriter to include both upper and lower case letters, using a ⇧ Shift key.
One popular but possibly apocryphal[2]: 162 explanation for the QWERTY arrangement is that it was designed to reduce the likelihood of internal clashing of typebars by placing commonly used combinations of letters farther from each other inside the machine.[5]
Differences from modern layout
Substituting characters
The QWERTY layout depicted in Sholes's 1878 patent is slightly different from the modern layout, most notably in the absence of the numerals 0 and 1, with each of the remaining numerals shifted one position to the left of their modern counterparts. The letter M is located at the end of the third row to the right of the letter L rather than on the fourth row to the right of the N, the letters X and C are reversed, and most punctuation marks are in different positions or are missing entirely.[6] 0 and 1 were omitted to simplify the design and reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the uppercase letter I (or lowercase letter L) for the digit one, and the uppercase O for the zero.[7]
The 0 key was added and standardized in its modern position early in the history of the typewriter, but the 1 and exclamation point were left off some typewriter keyboards into the 1970s.[8]
Combined characters
In early designs, some characters were produced by printing two symbols with the
In the era of mechanical typewriters, combined characters such as é and õ were created by the use of dead keys for the diacritics (′, ~), which did not move the paper forward. Thus the ′ and e would be printed at the same location on the paper, creating é.
Contemporaneous alternatives
There were no particular technological requirements for the QWERTY layout,
Properties
Alternating hands while typing is a desirable trait in a keyboard design. While one hand types a letter, the other hand can prepare to type the next letter, making the process faster and more efficient. In the QWERTY layout many more words can be spelled using only the left hand than the right hand. Thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand[10] (the three most frequent letters in the English language, ETA, are all typed with the left hand). In addition, more typing strokes are done with the left hand in the QWERTY layout. This is helpful for left-handed people but disadvantageous for right-handed people.
Contrary to popular belief, the QWERTY layout was not designed to slow the typist down,[2]: 162 but rather to speed up typing. Indeed, there is evidence that, aside from the issue of jamming, placing often-used keys farther apart increases typing speed, because it encourages alternation between the hands.[11] (On the other hand, in the German keyboard the Z has been moved between the T and the U to help type the frequent digraphs TZ and ZU in that language.) Almost every word in the English language contains at least one vowel letter, but on the QWERTY keyboard only the vowel letter A is on the home row, which requires the typist's fingers to leave the home row for most words.
A feature much less commented on than the order of the keys is that the keys do not form a rectangular grid, but rather each column slants diagonally. This is because of the mechanical linkages – each key is attached to a lever, and hence the offset prevents the levers from running into each other – and has been retained in most electronic keyboards. Some keyboards, such as the Kinesis or TypeMatrix, retain the QWERTY layout but arrange the keys in vertical columns, to reduce unnecessary lateral finger motion.[12][13]
Computer keyboards
The first computer terminals such as the Teletype were typewriters that could produce and be controlled by various computer codes. These used the QWERTY layouts and added keys such as escape Esc which had special meanings to computers. Later keyboards added function keys and arrow keys. Since the standardization of personal computers and Windows after the 1980s, most full-sized computer keyboards have followed this standard (see drawing at right). This layout has a separate numeric keypad for data entry at the right, 12 function keys across the top, and a cursor section to the right and center with keys for Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down with cursor arrows in an inverted-T shape.[14]
Diacritical marks
QWERTY was designed for
Other keys and characters
Specific language variants
This article or section may need to be cleaned up or summarized because it has been split from/to List of QWERTY keyboard language variants. |
Minor changes to the arrangement are made for other languages. There are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Latin script. 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, for example this QWERTY layout and the AZERTY layout.
In this section you will also find keyboard layouts that include some additional symbols of other languages. But they are different from layouts that were designed with the goal to be usable for multiple languages (see Multilingual variants).
The following sections give general descriptions of QWERTY keyboard variants along with details specific to certain operating systems. The emphasis is on Microsoft Windows.
English
Canada
English-speaking Canadians have traditionally used 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. French-speaking Canadians respectively have favoured the Canadian French keyboard layout (see French (Canada), below).
The CSA keyboard is the official multilingual keyboard layout of Canada.[15][16]
United Kingdom
The
The BS 4822:1994 standard did not make any use of the AltGr key and lacked support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigned a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar ¦, but lacked one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar |. It also lacked support for various diacritics used in the
- The B00 key (left of Z), shifted, results in vertical bar | on some systems (e.g. UK166 keyboard layout)
- The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar | (X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar ¦ (Microsoft WindowsUK/Ireland keyboard layout)
Support for the diacritics needed for Scots Gaelic and Welsh was added to Windows and ChromeOS using a "UK-extended" setting (see below); Linux and X11 systems have an explicit or reassigned Compose key for this purpose.
UK Apple keyboard
The British version of the
Newer Apple "British" keyboards use a layout that is relatively unlike either the US or traditional UK keyboard. It uses an elongated return key, a shortened left ⇧ Shift with
United States
The arrangement of the character input keys and the ⇧
US keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in many other English-speaking places, (except UK and Ireland), including India, Australia, Anglophone Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia that uses the same 26-letter alphabets as English. In many other English-speaking jurisdictions (e.g., Canada, Australia, the Caribbean nations, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore, New Zealand, and South Africa), local spelling sometimes conforms more closely to British English usage, although these nations decided to use a US English keyboard layout. Until Windows 8 and later versions, when Microsoft separated the settings, this had the undesirable side effect of also setting the language to US English, rather than the local orthography.
The US keyboard layout has a second
On some keyboards the ↵ Enter is bigger than traditionally and takes up also a part of the line above, more or less the area of the traditional location of the \ key. In these cases the backslash is located in alternative places.[20] It can be situated one line above the default location, on the right of the = key .[21][22] Sometimes it is placed one line below its traditional situation, on the right of the ' (in these cases the ↵ Enter key is narrower than usual on the line of its default location).[23] It may also be two lines below its default situation on the right of a narrower than traditionally right ⇧ Shift key.[24]
Arabic
Two keyboard layouts that are based on Qwerty are used in Arabic-speaking countries. Microsoft designate them as Arabic (101) and Arabic (102). In both the number line is identical to the American layout, beside ( ) being mirrored, and not including the key to the left of 1. The \ key on the right side of the keyboard is also the same. | could also be produced by shifting the key on the left side of the keyboard. "? are produced by shifting the same keys, but ? is mirrored to ؟. In Arabic (102) it's true also for {} which are again mirrored. Finally, , instead of being the normal output of their keys, are produced by shifting the same keys. [25]
Czech
The typewriter came to the Czech-speaking area in the late 19th century, when it was part of Austria-Hungary where German was the dominant language of administration. Therefore, Czech typewriters have the QWERTZ layout.
However, with the introduction of imported computers, especially since the 1990s, the QWERTY keyboard layout is frequently used for computer keyboards. The Czech QWERTY layout differs from QWERTZ in that the characters (e.g. @$& and others) missing from the Czech keyboard are accessible with AltGr on the same keys where they are located on an American keyboard. In Czech QWERTZ keyboards the positions of these characters accessed through AltGr differs.
Danish
Both the Danish and Norwegian keyboards include dedicated keys for the letters Å/å, Æ/æ and Ø/ø, but the placement is a little different, as the Æ and Ø keys are swapped on the Norwegian layout. (The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also largely similar to the Norwegian layout, but the Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Danish keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.) Computers with Windows are commonly sold with ÖØÆ and ÄÆØ printed on the two keys, allowing same computer hardware to be sold in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, with different operating system settings.
Dutch (Netherlands)
Though it is seldom used (most Dutch keyboards use
In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), "AZERTY" keyboards are used instead, due to influence from the French-speaking part of Belgium.
See also #US-International in the Netherlands below.
Estonian
The keyboard layout used in
Faroese
The same as the Danish layout with added Đ (
French (Canada)
This keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by
In some variants, the key names are translated to French:
- ⇪ Caps Lock is Fix Maj or Verr Maj (short for Fixer/Verrouiller Majuscule, meaning Lock Uppercase).
- ↵ Enter is ↵ Entrée.[28]
- Esc is Échap.
Greek
- The stress accents, indicated in red, are produced by pressing that key (or shifted key) followed by an appropriate vowel.
- Use of the AltGr key may produce the characters shown in blue.
German
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg use QWERTZ layouts, where the letter Z is to the right of T.
Icelandic
The Icelandic keyboard layout is different from the standard QWERTY keyboard because the Icelandic alphabet has some special letters, most of which it shares with the other Nordic countries: Þ/þ, Ð/ð, Æ/æ, and Ö/ö. (Æ/æ also occurs in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, Ð/ð in Faroese, and Ö/ö in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian. In Norwegian Ö/ö could be substituted for Ø/Ø which is the same sound/letter and is widely understood).
The letters Á/á, Ý/ý, Ú/ú, Í/í, and É/é are produced by first pressing the ´ dead key and then the corresponding letter. The Nordic letters Å/å and Ä/ä can be produced by first pressing °, located below the Esc key, and ⇧ Shift+° (for ¨, two dots) which also works for the non-Nordic ÿ, Ü/ü, Ï/ï, and Ë/ë. These letters are not used natively in Icelandic, but may have been implemented for ease of communication in other Nordic languages.[citation needed] Additional diacritics may be found behind the AltGr key: AltGr++ for ˋ (freestanding grave accent, "backtick") and AltGr+´ for ˆ (freestanding circumflex).
Irish
Italian
- Braces (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr+⇧ Shift pressed.
- The tilde (~) and backquote (`) characters are not present on the Italian keyboard layout (with Linux, they are available by pressing AltGr+Shif+ì, and AltGr+⇧ Shift+'; Windows might not recognise these keybindings).
- When using Microsoft Windows, the standard Italian keyboard layout does not allow one to write 100% correct Italian language, since it lacks capital accented vowels, and in particular the È key. The common workaround is writing E' (E followed by an apostrophe) instead, or relying on the auto-correction feature of several word processors when available. It is possible to obtain the È symbol in MS Windows by typing Alt+0200. Mac users, however, can write the correct accented character by pressing ⇧ Shift+⌥ Option+E or, in the usual Mac way, by pressing the correct key for the accent (in this case Alt+9) and subsequently pressing the wanted letter (in this case ⇧ Shift+E). Linux users can also write it by pressing the è key with ⇪ Caps Lock enabled.
There is an alternate layout, which differs only in disposition of characters accessible through AltGr, and includes the tilde and the curly brackets. It is commonly used in IBM keyboards.
Italian
The Italian-speaking part of Switzerland uses the QWERTZ keyboard.
Latvian
Although rarely used, a keyboard layout specifically designed for the Latvian language called ŪGJRMV exists. The Latvian QWERTY keyboard layout is most commonly used; its layout is the same as Latin ones, but with a dead key, which allows entering special characters (āčēģīķļņõŗšūž). The most common dead key is the apostrophe ', which is followed by AltGr (Windows default for Latvian layout). Some prefer using the tick `.
Lithuanian
Where in standard QWERTY the number row is located, you find in Lithuanian QWERTY: Ą, Č,Ę, Ė, Į, Š, Ų, Ū, Ž, instead of their counterparts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, =. If you still want to use the numbers, you can create them in combination with the AltGr key. Aside from these changes the keyboard is standard QWERTY. Besides QWERTY, the
Maltese
The Maltese language uses Unicode (UTF-8) to display the Maltese diacritics: ċ Ċ; ġ Ġ; ħ Ħ; ż Ż (together with à À; è È; ì Ì; ò Ò; ù Ù). There are two standard keyboard layouts Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine for Maltese, according to "MSA 100:2002 Maltese Keyboard Standard"; one of 47 keys and one of 48 keys. The 48-key layout is the most popular.
Norwegian
The Norwegian languages use the same letters as Danish, but the Norwegian keyboard differs from the Danish layout regarding the placement of the Ø, Æ and \ (backslash) keys. On the Danish keyboard, the Ø and Æ are swapped. The Swedish keyboard is also similar to the Norwegian layout, but Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Norwegian keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.
There is also an alternative keyboard layout called Norwegian with Sámi, which allows for easier input of the characters required to write various Sámi languages. All the Sámi characters are accessed through the AltGr key.
On
Polish
Most typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish letters (with diacritical marks) accessed directly (officially approved as "Typist's keyboard", Polish: klawiatura maszynistki, Polish Standard PN-87), which is mainly ignored in Poland as impractical (custom-made keyboards, e.g., those in the public sector as well as some Apple computers, present an exception to this paradigm); the "Polish programmer's" (Polish: polski programisty) layout has become the de facto standard, used on virtually all computers sold on the Polish market.
Most computer keyboards in Poland are laid out according to the
Both ANSI
Caps Lock state | In combination with | Keystroke | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | C | E | L | N | O | S | Z | X | U | ||
Off | right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | € |
Shift & right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | ||
On | right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | € |
Shift & right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | ||
Note: On Polish programmer keyboard, right Alt plays the role of AltGr
|
Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character "~" (⇧ Shift+`) acts as a dead key to type Polish letters (with diacritical marks) thus, to obtain an "Ł", one may press ⇧ Shift+`L. The tilde character is obtained with ⇧ Shift+`Space.
In Linux-based systems, the euro symbol is typically mapped to Alt+5 instead of Alt+U, the tilde acts as a normal key, and several accented letters from other European languages are accessible through combinations with left Alt. Polish letters are also accessible by using the Compose key.
Software keyboards on touchscreen devices usually make the Polish diacritics available as one of the alternatives which show up after long-pressing the corresponding Latin letter.[34][35] However, modern predictive text and autocorrection algorithms largely mitigate the need to type them directly on such devices.
Portuguese
Brazil
The Brazilian computer keyboard layout is specified in the
Essentially, the Brazilian keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics in use in the language; the letter Ç, the only application of the
Variant 2 of the Brazilian keyboard, the only which gained general acceptance (MS Windows treats both variants as the same layout),
Portugal
Essentially, the Portuguese keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilla in Portuguese, has its own key, but there are also a dedicated key for the ordinal indicators and a dedicated key for quotation marks. The AltGr+E combination for producing the euro sign € (Unicode 0x20AC) has become standard. On some QWERTY keyboards the key labels are translated, but the majority are labelled in English.
During the 20th century, a different keyboard layout, HCESAR, was in widespread use in Portugal.
Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
The current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary"[37] one and a "secondary"[38] one.
The "primary" layout is intended for traditional users who have learned how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly used by programmers as it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default Romanian layout by Linux distributions, as defined in the "X Keyboard Configuration Database".[39]
There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in versions of Microsoft Windows until Vista came out:
- Ș (U+0218, S with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ş(U+015E, S with cedilla)
- ș (U+0219, s with comma), incorrectly implemented as ş (U+015F, s with cedilla)
- Ț (U+021A, T with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ţ(U+0162, T with cedilla)
- ț (U+021B, t with comma), incorrectly implemented as ţ (U+0163, t with cedilla)
The cedilla-versions of the characters do not exist in the Romanian language (they came to be used due to a historic bug).[40] The UCS now says that encoding this was a mistake because it messed up Romanian data and the letters with cedilla and the letters with comma are the same letter with a different style.[41]
Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver that allows Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard in all versions of Windows prior to Vista through the use of the AltGr key modifier.[42]
Windows Vista and newer versions include the correct diacritical signs in the default Romanian Keyboard layout.
This layout has the Z and Y keys mapped like in English layouts and also includes characters like the 'at' (@) and dollar ($) signs, among others. The older cedilla-version layout is still included albeit as the 'Legacy' layout.
Slovak
In Slovakia, similarly to the Czech Republic, both QWERTZ and QWERTY keyboard layouts are used. QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for Slovak in Microsoft Windows.
Spanish
Spain
The Spanish keyboard layout is used to write in
On most keyboards, € is marked as Alt Gr + E and not Alt Gr + 5 as shown in the image. However, in some keyboards, € is found marked twice. An alternative version exists, supporting all of
Spanish keyboards are usually labelled in Spanish instead of English, its abbreviations being:
Spanish label | English equivalent |
---|---|
Insertar (Ins) | Insert (Ins) |
Suprimir (Supr) | Delete (Del) |
Retroceder página (Re Pág) | Page up (PgUp) |
Avanzar página (Av Pág) | Page down (PgDn) |
Inicio | Home |
Fin | End |
Imprimir pantalla / Petición de sistema (Impr Pant/PetSis) | Print Screen / System request (PrtScn/SysRq) |
Bloqueo de mayúsculas (Bloq Mayús) | Caps Lock |
Bloqueo numérico (Bloq Num) | Num Lock |
Bloqueo de desplazamiento (Bloq Despl) | Scroll Lock |
Pausa / Interrumpir (Pausa/Inter) | Pause/Break |
Intro | Enter |
On some keyboards, the c-cedilla key (Ç) is located one or two lines above, rather than on the right of, the acute accent key (´). In some cases it is placed on the right of the plus sign key (+),[43][44] while in other keyboards it is situated on the right of the inverted exclamation mark key (¡).[45][circular reference][46]
Latin America, officially known as Spanish Latinamerican sort
The Latin American Spanish keyboard layout is used throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Before its design, Latin American vendors had been selling the Spanish (Spain) layout as default.
Its most obvious difference from the Spanish (Spain) layout is the lack of a Ç key; on Microsoft Windows, it lacks a tilde (~) dead key, whereas on Linux systems the dead tilde can be optionally enabled. This is not a problem when typing in Spanish, but it is rather problematic when typing in Portuguese, which can be an issue in countries with large commercial ties to Brazil (Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay).
Normally "Bloq Mayús" is used instead of "Caps Lock", and "Intro" instead of "Enter".
Swedish
The central characteristics of the
The Norwegian keyboard largely resembles the Swedish layout, but the Ö and Ä are replaced with Ø and Æ. The Danish keyboard is also similar, but it has the Ø and Æ swapped. On some systems, the Swedish or Finnish keyboard may allow typing Ø/ø and Æ/æ by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ö and Ä, respectively.
The Swedish with Sámi keyboard allows typing not only Ø/ø and Æ/æ, but even the letters required to write various Sámi languages. This keyboard has the same function for all the keys engraved on the regular Swedish keyboard, and the additional letters are available through the AltGr key.
On
On Linux systems, the Swedish keyboard may also give access to additional characters as follows:
- first row: AltGr ¶¡@£$€¥{[]}\± and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¾¹²³¼¢⅝÷«»°¿¬
- second row: AltGr @ł€®þ←↓→œþ"~ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ΩŁ¢®Þ¥↑ıŒÞ°ˇ
- third row: AltGr ªßðđŋħjĸłøæ´ and AltGr+⇧ Shift º§ÐªŊĦJ&ŁØÆ×
- fourth row: AltGr |«»©""nµ¸·̣ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¦<>©‘’Nº˛˙˙
Several of these characters function as dead keys.
Turkish
Today the majority of Turkish keyboards are based on QWERTY (the so-called Q-keyboard layout), although there is also the older F-keyboard layout specifically designed for the language.
Vietnamese
The Vietnamese keyboard layout is an extended Latin QWERTY layout. The letters Ă, Â, Ê, and Ô are found on what would be the number keys 1–4 on the US English keyboard, with 5–9 producing the tonal marks (grave accent, hook, tilde, acute accent and dot below, in that order), 0 producing Đ, = producing the đồng sign (₫) when not shifted, and brackets ([]) producing Ư and Ơ.[47]
Multilingual variants
This section also tries to arrange the layouts in ascending order by the number of possible languages and not chronologically according to the Latin alphabet as usual.
United Kingdom (Extended) Layout
Windows
From
In this layout, the grave accent key (`¦) becomes, as it also does in the US International layout, a dead key modifying the character generated by the next key pressed. The apostrophe, double-quote, tilde and circumflex (caret) keys are not changed, becoming dead keys only when 'shifted' with AltGr. Additional precomposed characters are also obtained by shifting the 'normal' key using the AltGr key. The extended keyboard is software installed from the Windows control panel, and the extended characters are not normally engraved on keyboards.
The UK Extended keyboard uses mostly the AltGr key to add diacritics to the letters a, e, i, n, o, u, w and y (the last two being used in Welsh) as appropriate for each character, as well as to their capitals. Pressing the key and then a character that does not take the specific diacritic produces the behaviour of a standard keyboard. The key presses followed by spacebar generate a stand-alone mark.:
- grave accents (e.g. à, è, etc.) needed for Scots Gaelic are generated by pressing the grave accent (or 'backtick') key `, which is a dead key, then the letter. Thus `+a produces à.
- acute accents (e.g. á) needed for Irish are generated by pressing the AltGr key together with the letter.[c] Thus AltGr+a produces á; AltGr+⇧ Shift+a produces Á.
- the circumflex diacritic needed for Welsh may be added by AltGr+6, acting as a dead key combination, followed by the letter. Thus AltGr+6 then a produces â, AltGr+6 then w produces the letter ŵ.
Some other languages commonly studied in the UK and Ireland are also supported to some extent:
- diaeresis or umlaut (e.g. ä, ë, ö, etc.) is generated by a dead key combination AltGr+2, then the letter. Thus AltGr+2a produces ä.
- tilde (e.g. ã, ñ, õ, etc., as used in Spanish and Portuguese) is generated by dead key combination AltGr+#, then the letter. Thus AltGr+#a produces ã.
- cedilla (e.g. ç) under c is generated by AltGr+C, and the capital letter (Ç) is produced by AltGr+⇧ Shift+C
The AltGr and letter method used for acutes and cedillas does not work for applications which assign shortcut menu functions to these key combinations.
These combinations are intended to be mnemonic and designed to be easy to remember: the circumflex accent (e.g. â) is similar to the free-standing circumflex (caret) (^
), printed above the 6 key; the diaeresis/umlaut (e.g. ö) is visually similar to the double-quote ("
) above 2 on the UK keyboard; the tilde (~
) is printed on the same key as the #.
The UK Extended layout is almost entirely transparent to users familiar with the UK layout. A machine with the extended layout behaves exactly as with the standard UK, except for the rarely used grave accent key. This makes this layout suitable for a machine for shared or public use by a user population in which some use the extended functions.
Despite being created for multilingual users, UK-Extended in Windows does have some gaps — there are many languages that it cannot cope with, including Romanian and Turkish, and all languages with different character sets, such as Greek and Russian. It also does not cater for thorn (þ, Þ) in Old English, the ß in German, the œ in French, nor for the å, æ, ø, ð, þ in Nordic languages.
ChromeOS
The UK Extended layout (a ChromeOS extension[d]) provides all the same combinations as with Windows, but adds many more symbols and dead keys via AltGr.
¬ ◌ ◌ ¦ |
! ¡ 1 ¹ |
" ½ 2 ◌ |
£ ⅓ 3 ³ |
$ ¼ 4 € |
% ⅜ 5 ½ |
^ ⅝ 6 ◌ |
& ⅞ 7 { |
* ™ 8 [ |
( ± 9 ] |
) ° 0 } |
_ ¿ - \ |
+ ◌ = ◌ |
tab | Q Ω q @ |
W Ẃ w ẃ |
E É e é |
R ® r ¶ |
T Ŧ t ŧ |
Y Ý y ý |
U Ú u ú |
I Í i í |
O Ó o ó |
P Þ p þ |
{ ◌ [ ◌ |
} ◌ ] ◌ |
◉ | A Á a á |
S § s ß |
D Ð d ð |
F ª f đ |
G Ŋ g ŋ |
H Ħ h ħ |
J ◌ j ◌ |
K & k ĸ |
L Ł l ł |
: ◌ ; ◌ |
@ ◌ ' ◌ |
~ ◌ # ◌ |
shift | | ¦ \ | |
Z < z « |
X > x » |
C Ç c ç |
V ‘ v “ |
B ’ b ” |
N N n n |
M º m µ |
< × , ─ |
> ÷ . · |
? ◌ / ◌ |
shift |
Notes: Dotted circle (◌) is used here to indicate a dead key. The ` ("backtick", grave accent) key is the only one that acts as a free-standing dead key and thus does not respond as shown on the key-cap. All others are invoked by AltGr.
AltGr+⇧ Shift+0 (°) is a
- Dead keys
- `+letter produces grave accents (e.g., à/À) (`+` produces a standalone backtick).
- AltGr+2(release)letter produces double dot diacritics(diaeresis or umlaut: e.g., ä/Ä)
- AltGr+6(release)letter produces circumflex accents(e.g., â/Â)
- AltGr+= (release) letter produces (mainly) comma diacritic or cedilla below the letter (e.g., ş/Ş) [In addition, AltGr+c produces ç]
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+= (release) letter produces a hook (diacritic) on vowels (e.g., ą/Ą)
- AltGr+[ same as AltGr+2
- AltGr+] same as AltGr+#
- AltGr+{(release)letter produces overrings(e.g., å/Å)
- AltGr+}(release)letter produces macrons (e.g., ā/Ā)
- AltGr+j(release)letter produces mainly horn (diacritic)s (e.g., ả/Ả)
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+j(release)letter produces an adjacent horn (e.g., ư/Ư)
- AltGr+;(release)letter produces acute accents (e.g., ź/Ź)
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+;(release)letter produces double acute accents on some letters (e.g., Ő/ő) that exist in Unicode as pre-composed characters
- AltGr+'(release)letter produces acute accents (e.g., á/Á)
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+'(release)letter produces caron (haček) diacritics (e.g., ǎ/Ǎ)
- AltGr+#(release)letter produces tilde diacritics (e.g., ã/Ã)
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+#(release)letter produces inverted breve diacritics (e.g., ă/Ă)
- AltGr+/(release)letter produces mainly underdots (e.g., ạ/Ạ)
- AltGr+⇧ Shift+/(release)letter produces mainly overdots (e.g., ȧ/Ȧ)
Finally, any arbitrary Unicode
US-International
Windows provides an alternative layout for a US keyboard to type diacritics, called the US-International layout. Linux and ChromeOS (which calls it the International/Extended keyboard[citation needed]) also provide this layout with slight modifications such as many more AltGr combinations.
The layout is installed from the settings panel.), are not fully supported. If they keyboard does not have an AltGr key, the right-hand Alt is used. If that key does not exist (which is true of many laptops) the combination Ctrl+Alt works as well.
This layout uses keys ', `, ", ^ and ~ as dead keys to generate characters with diacritics by pressing the appropriate key, then the letter on the keyboard. Only certain letters such as vowels and "n", work, otherwise the symbol is produced followed by the typed letter. To get only the symbol ', `, ", ^ and ~, press the Spacebar after the key.
- ' + vowel → vowel with acute accent, e.g., '+e → é
- ` + vowel → vowel with grave accent, e.g., `+e → è
- " + vowel → vowel with diaeresis (or umlaut), e.g., "+e → ë
- ^ + vowel → vowel with circumflex accent, e.g., ^+e → ê
- ~ + a, n or o → letter with tilde, e.g. ~+n → ñ, ~+o → õ
- ' + c → ç (Windows) or ć (X11)
The layout is not entirely transparent to users familiar with the conventional US layout as the dead keys act different (they don't appear immediately and produce accented letters depending on what letter is typed next). This could be disconcerting on a machine for shared or public use. There are alternatives, such as requiring AltGr to be held down to get the dead-key function.
US-International in the Netherlands
The
Apple International English Keyboard
There are three kinds of
Differences from the US layout are:
- The "
' key. - The ±
§ key is added on the left of the!
1 key. - The left ⇧ Shift key is shortened and the Return key has the shape of inverted L.
Canadian Multilingual Standard
The Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout is used by some Canadians. Though the caret (^) is missing, it is easily inserted by typing the circumflex accent followed by a space.
Finnish multilingual
The visual layout used in
As of 2008, there is a new standard for the Finnish multilingual keyboard layout, developed as part of a
Based on the
Second, it is designed to offer an indirect but intuitive way to enter the special letters and diacritics needed by the other three
As a third objective, it allows for relatively easy entering of particularly names (of persons, places or products) in a variety of European languages using a more or less extended Latin alphabet, such as the official languages of the European Union (excluding Bulgarian and Greek). Some letters, like Ł/ł needed for Slavic languages, are accessed by a special "overstrike" key combination acting like a dead key.[51] Initially the
EurKEY
EurKEY, a multilingual keyboard layout intended for Europeans, programmers and translators which uses the US-standard QWERTY layout as base and adds a third and fourth layer available through the AltGr key and AltGr+⇧ Shift. These additional layers provide support for many Western European languages, special characters, the Greek alphabet (via dead keys), and many common mathematical symbols.
Unlike most of the other QWERTY layouts, which are formal standards for a country or region, EurKEY is not an EU, EFTA or any national standard.
To address the ergonomics issue of QWERTY, EurKEY Colemak-DH was also developed a Colmak-DH version with the EurKEY design principles.
Alternatives
Several alternatives to QWERTY have been developed over the years, claimed by their designers and users to be more efficient, intuitive, and ergonomic. Nevertheless, none have seen widespread adoption, partly due to the sheer dominance of available keyboards and training.
The most widely used such alternative is the Dvorak keyboard layout; another alternative is Colemak, which is based partly on QWERTY and is claimed to be easier for an existing QWERTY typist to learn while offering several supposed optimisations.[56] Most modern computer operating systems support these and other alternative mappings with appropriate special mode settings, with some modern operating systems allowing the user to map their keyboard in any way they like, but few keyboards are made with keys labeled according to any other standard.
Comparison to other keyboard input systems
Comparisons have been made between Dvorak, Colemak, QWERTY, and other keyboard input systems, namely stenotype or its electronic implementations. However, stenotype is a fundamentally different system, which relies on phonetics and simultaneous key presses or chords. Although Shorthand (or 'stenography') has long been known as a faster and more accurate typing system,[citation needed] adoption has been limited, possibly due to the historically high cost of equipment, steeper initial learning curve, and low awareness of the benefits within primary education and in the general public.[citation needed]
The first typed shorthand machines appeared around 1830, with English versions gaining popularity in the early 1900s.[citation needed] Modern electronic stenotype machines or programs produce output in written language,[citation needed] which provides an experience similar to other keyboard setups that immediately produce legible work.
Half QWERTY
A half QWERTY keyboard is a combination of an alpha-numeric keypad and a QWERTY keypad, designed for
See also
- HCESAR
- JCUKEN
- Colemak Keyboard
- Dvorak keyboard layout
- KALQ keyboard split-screen touchscreen thumb-typing Android-only 2013 beta
- Keyboard monument
- Maltron keyboard
- Path dependence
- Repetitive strain injury
- Text entry interface
- Thumb keyboard
- Touch typing
- Velotype
- Virtual keyboard
- WASD
Notes
- ^ Where this key is not provided, some layouts provide its equivalent using ctrl+alt+the letter to be accented, which can mean some chords that require additional manual dexterity.
- Scots Gaelic as well. The other Insular Celtic languageshave their own layout.
- ^ The sequence AltGr+' – acting as a dead key combination – followed by the letter, has the same effect. This inconvenient facility is rarely used, being needed only for use with programs that use the combination of AltGr and a letter (or Ctrl+Alt and letter) for other functions, in which case the AltGr+' method must be used to generate acute accents.
- ^ This extension, "Offered by: chrome-input-extensions" and made by Google, is downloadable from the Chrome Web Store.
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