I can't touch type.
I don't exactly hunt and peck for the letters anymore but I look at the keys a lot more than I do the screen.

There should be a downloadable, (should that word be hyphenated?), program which displays a virtual keyboard along the bottom of a computer screen to allow the novice, (or too dang busy to take a course in it), typist to be able to see not only the letters themselves being brought up on the screen, but the keyboard as well.
This would negate the need to look down in the first place when learning the skill.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 23 2007

You can get a free demo version of this http://www.typingmaster.com/
and it shows you an on-screen image of the keyboard. [pertinax, Nov 23 2007]

Woops. Not a thourough enough search. Gone in a flash.

Thanks [pertinax] I might have to order that.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 24 2007


Whilst if you use a computer for work you should certainly get professional typing training because it covers a lot more than just finding buttons (including essentials such as posture and punctuation), if you wish to teach yourself there is a simple method which works reliably and fast.

First, take a cardboard box (large cereal box is ok), cut out one large side and one long thing side, so that it can be placed over the keyboard like a 'garage', leaving an opening at the front of a few inches height.

Now, slide your hands into that cardboard box, and with your two index fingers, seek out the home keys which you can identify by small dots or raised bars (F and J). Return your two index fingers to those keys every time you move them, and resist the urge to move your fingers left or right (only your index fingers need to move left or right, to cover the gap between them).

Within a week of forcing yourself to find keys by trial and error without sight of the keyboard you will have increased your blood pressure and learnt how to touch type merely through remembering which finger action produces the required letter to appear on the screen.
-- vincevincevince, Nov 24 2007


I may try that.

[boysparks] you didn't mis read. I do mean an accessory program that will display a keyboard no matter what else you may be doing on the computer if you call it up.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 24 2007


I would like to see something like what you mentioned, with one addition: a way for it to utterly reject a press of the <enter> key until the user has actually looked up to see what they typed. My father-in-law is always looking for tech support on "The stupid computer is messed up again, it won't go to that google.com thing" and I look in his history and find he typed "qwqwwe.tgffo9iololgfle. ,cdojm".
-- lurch, Nov 24 2007



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