Keyboard test

Click the board above so it has focus, then press every key you care about, one at a time. A key turns green the first time the browser hears it and shows a count if you press it again. Held keys glow while they are down, which is the quick way to spot one that is stuck. The line under the board shows the last character your operating system produced, next to the physical position it came from — those two are different things, and the difference is the clue in most “wrong letter” problems.

Aim to light every key in the main block. The board maps a standard layout by position, so it works whether your keys are printed in English, Spanish, German or anything else.

• Press it firmly, then in another app. Open a plain text editor and press the same key. If it works there, the key is fine and the browser simply did not receive it.
• Look under the keycap.Crumbs, hair and — on a family laptop — the residue of a snack are the most common cause of a single dead key. A blast of compressed air fixes more keyboards than anything else.
• Reconnect. Unplug and replug a wired keyboard, or re-seat the USB receiver of a wireless one. Try a different port.
• Rule out the operating system. Open the on-screen keyboard and click the same key. If that works and the physical key does not, the fault is in the hardware, not in any setting.
• Check accessibility settings. Windows Filter Keys and macOS Slow Keys both ignore short presses on purpose. A key that works only when held for a moment is almost always one of these.
• Laptop? Plug in any external keyboard. If it works, you have narrowed the fault to the built-in one.

Wrong character:the board lit the right position but the “last press” shows a different letter. Your OS keyboard layout or input language does not match the printed keys — a very common result of a toddler mashing a language shortcut. Check the language indicator in the taskbar or menu bar. Numbers producing symbols usually means Num Lock; letters all in capitals means Caps Lock or a stuck Shift.

Repeating keys: a count that climbs on a single press means the switch is bouncing. Debris again, or a worn switch on an older keyboard. The repeat delay setting in your OS only affects a key that is held, not one that is tapped.

Several keys at once not registering: that is rollover, not a fault. Most ordinary keyboards register only a few simultaneous presses, which matters for games and for nobody else.

Fn, media and power keys are handled by the keyboard’s own firmware or the operating system and never reach a web page. PrintScreen and the Windows key are taken by the OS before the browser sees them. A dark key in any of those places is not a fault this page can detect. Everything else — every letter, number, arrow and modifier — it can.

And nothing is sent anywhere. Presses are counted in memory and gone when you close the tab. Press ordinary letters; there is never a reason to type a password into a keyboard tester, including this one.

Because the same story brings people here: a key stopped working, and a baby was involved. TotTypeexists for the other half of that story — the keyboard playground is a keyboard where every key is safe to press and every press does something bright, and it needs no account. If the keys survived, that is the place to point the small hands next time. And if the child is a little older, the typing test for kids is the next tool along.