Keyboard test

Click the keyboard on the desk so it has focus, then press every key you care about, one at a time. Each key presses down while you hold it and turns green the first time the browser hears it, with a count if you press it again. The monitor types out what you press and logs each key with how long it was held, which is the quick way to spot one that is stuck. The line under the desk 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.

The report under the desk sums it up: how many keys responded, any key chatter, the most keys held at once, a stuck-key warning and the mouse buttons seen. The Look and Sound switches change the keyboard’s style and add typing sounds; they are just for fun and change nothing in the test.

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, or an orange chatter mark on the key, 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. Hold them together on the desk above and the report shows how many registered at once. Most ordinary keyboards register only a few simultaneous presses, which matters for games and for nobody else.

Key chatter. If one tap makes a key fire twice, its switch is bouncing. The tester marks a key orange when it goes up and down again within 35 milliseconds, faster than any finger, and lists it in the report. Dust under the keycap or a worn switch is the usual cause; on a mechanical keyboard, compressed air or a new switch fixes it.

Rollover and ghosting. Hold several keys down together. The report shows the most keys the browser saw held at once. Many office and laptop keyboards register only two to six keys together on some combinations, and a key that does not light while others are held is “ghosting”. Keyboards with n-key rollover register them all. Your operating system and browser can also cap the count, so a low number on one combination is not a fault by itself.

Stuck keys. A key that stays down for more than five seconds with no release gets a warning in the report. If nobody is holding it, the key is physically stuck, or its signal is stuck inside the keyboard: reconnect it and try again.

Click the left, right and middle buttons on the mouse pad beside the keyboard, press the side Back and Forward buttons if your mouse has them, and roll the wheel both ways. Each lights up on the drawn mouse as the browser hears it, and the side buttons will not send this page back or forward while you test. Two left clicks under 80 milliseconds apart are faster than a finger can click: that is a left button double-clicking by itself, a common worn-switch fault. A touch screen has no mouse to test, so the mouse pad is hidden there.

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 no request carries your key presses. They 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. TotType exists 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.