onscreen keyboard Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

How to use the Onscreen Keyboard in Windows 8.1 and Windows 10

Posted on June 21, 2020

By now you are probably quite familiar with the onscreen keyboard that pops up whenever you access a text box on your mobile device.

What most people don’t know however is recent versions of Microsoft Windows come with onscreen keyboards as well.

You might be wondering why you would ever want to use an onscreen keyboard when your PC already has a full-size physical keyboard.

Well, there are several situations in which an onscreen keyboard can come in handy. Here are a couple that arise fairly often : [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is the keyboard on my iPad split in half?

Posted on September 17, 2017

Question from Linda: My 4 year old got her hands on my iPad and now the onscreen keyboard is split into two halves.

I tried typing with it like this but I just can’t because it feels so unnatural.

I’ll be forever in your debt if you can tell me what I need to do to get it back to normal! Can you?

Rick’s answer: This actually happens a lot Linda, and it’s almost always by accident based on the desperate pleas for help I receive on a fairly consistent basis.

Your message prompted me to finally write this post explaining how to fix the split keyboard issue. [Read more…]

How to create a Desktop Shortcut for quickly launching the OnScreen Keyboard

Posted on June 16, 2017

Every now and then I receive messages asking me how to launch the OnScreen Keyboard on Windows machines that don’t have a touch screen.

There are several ways to activate the OnScreen Keyboard, but my favorite method is by simply clicking a desktop shortcut.

If you’d like to create a shortcut to the OnScreen Keyboard on your own computer, just follow the steps below: [Read more…]