What is it?
Keyboard Layout Practice helps you learn another layout before switching your computer’s settings. Tick My keyboard is a normal QWERTY one: swap the keys for me and type on your usual keyboard: each press becomes the letter of the chosen layout, and the on-screen keyboard shows where each letter lives and which finger presses it.
Who is it for?
People moving to France, Belgium, Germany, Austria or Switzerland, those buying a laptop with a different layout, and typists curious about Dvorak.
How to use it
- Choose the Layout: AZERTY, QWERTZ, Dvorak or QWERTY.
- Keep the swap box ticked if your keyboard is QWERTY; untick it if your computer is already set to the new layout.
- Choose Practise: Home row, Words or Sentences, and follow “Next: …” and the lit-up keys.
- Read “… WPM with …% accuracy.” and press Next text; Try a sample (watch) shows a demo.
What changes in each layout
- AZERTY swaps A↔Q and Z↔W and moves M next to L; numbers on the top row need Shift (without it you get & é " and so on).
- QWERTZ swaps Y and Z and adds ö ä ü ß.
- Dvorak puts all vowels (A O E U I) on the left home row, so hands alternate more. It isn’t much faster for most people but many find it more comfortable.
Tips
Practise 10 minutes a day; most people can use both layouts after a few weeks. Learn the new home row first, then words.
How speed is counted: every 5 correct characters (letters, spaces and punctuation) count as one word, divided by the minutes you typed. 250 correct characters in one minute is 50 WPM. Accuracy is the share of keystrokes that were right.
Errors and how to fix them
- A letter turns red, or you see “Oops: press Backspace…”: you pressed the wrong key. Press Backspace and type the right one. Mistakes you leave in lower your accuracy.
- Letters come out doubled-swapped: your computer is already set to AZERTY/QWERTZ/Dvorak and the tool is swapping too. Untick the swap box.
- Doesn’t work on my phone: phone keyboards send whole letters, not key positions; use a computer.
Open the tool: Keyboard Layout Practice
Still stuck?
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Questions, or an error not listed here?
Tell us in the comments: what you were doing, the exact message you saw, and your device and browser. We read every comment and add new fixes to this article.