# learn to type fast software



## graudeejs (May 3, 2009)

Hi!
I was wondering if anyone could suggest me software to learn how to type fast.
Many years ago i was using TouchTyping (if i remember correctly).... It was very good, in fact i can type without looking at keyboard, but I'm not satisfied with my current skills and I want to improve.

I noticed that I don't use at least 1 finger on left hand when I type. lol. And I have many types (swapped characters)

The app I'm looking for should teach all keys on keyboard (no need for keypad, in fact rather avoid it, since laptops don't have it ), it should be methodical, not just put finger like this and start typing as fast as you can.....

I would really prefer having app on my PC, than doing this online....


Thanks


P.S. I'd like to hear your experience


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## vivek (May 3, 2009)

```
cd /usr/ports 
make search key=typing
```

Did returned few apps. 

games/gtypist
games/klavaro
games/typespeed


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## graudeejs (May 3, 2009)

klavaro failed to start with some very weird error
now testing gtypist


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## knotabot (May 5, 2009)

> * Learn typing with free online typing lessons for Qwerty or Dvorak keyboard.
> * Typing lessons for Dvorak and QWERTY are great for beginners or as a practice to improve speed.
> * Our online typing games are great for kids and up. Some games are accompanied with music.
> * Take a timed test to find your typing speed.


http://www.powertyping.com/

There are other sites as well.

You should learn Dvorak.
Takes about 2 weeks to learn Dvorak and you will be typing at least as fast as you were typing in qwerty, up to about 60wpm.
Many people easily double there WPM over qwerty after a few months.
In qwerty you can type 300 words on the home row.
In Dvorak you can type 3000 words on the home row.
Dvorak reduces finger travel improving performance and reducing strain.


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## knotabot (May 5, 2009)

If you prefer to not use an online system then there are these:

dvorak7mintutor
dvorak7min  is a simple ncurses-based typing tutor for those trying to get fluent with the Dvorak keyboard layout. 

DvorakNG
DvorakNG  DvorakNG is a Dvorak typing tutor. It's heavily based on Dvorak7min, but adds many improvements like a progress information database. 

gcompris
gcompris  is a set of educational games designed for small children, including typing games.

griffin
Griffin  is an effort to write a free typing tutor for as many unices as possible (BSD License). 

gtyping
gtyping is a GTK+/GNOME typing program. It provides character typing on a GUI keyboard, a typing tutor that uses a text file, and a simple typing game. 

JRainWords
JRainWords  is a small java program useful for teaching small children about the keyboard. 

jstypingtutor
jsTypingTutor  is a JavaScript program that attempts to help users and developers type faster and more accurately. Many files are included for the user to practice on - but, you may also use any text that can be copied and pasted into the main screen. 

Jtypist
Jtypist  (now called Typist) is a cousin of GNU Typist written in Java. It has a graphical user interface and display error statistics, showing the user what (s)he needs to improve. It has been developped by Simon Baldwin, one of the original authors of the famous Typist program, the ancestor of GNU Typist. 

KtouchKTouch is another program for learning to touch type. KTouch provides you with text to train on, and adjust to different levels, depending on how good you are. It can display which key to press next, and the correct finger to use. 

Makin' Bakon
Makin' Bakon  is a typing tutor game written in C++ with STL and Curses. Save Pig from the supermaket shelves while learning to type to a professional standard! It Uses the Fortune database for some of it's exercises. Contains material that may offend! 

Tipptrainer
Tipptrainer  is another graphical typing tutor. At the moment, it is available in two languages (German and English) and for two keymaps (PC-German and PC-English).

Tux Typing
Tux Typing is a graphical, educational typing tutorial game staring Tux, the GNU/Linux Penguin.

TypeFast
TypeFast  is a curses-based typing practice/tutoring program. It has rudimentary weighting on letters for which you are more prone to failure, and it features a mode where it will only prompt for characters from either the left or right side (conformant to generic Dvorak layouts, as well as QWERTY). 

Typespeed
Typespeed  is a game to test your typing speed, and compare it with your friends'.

Typing Trainer
Typing Trainer  is designed for exercising typing speed and typing accuracy, by providing an environment to type in a copy of an original text within a specific time period. It also has the ability to store the results of such an exercise for exam purposes.


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## graudeejs (May 5, 2009)

knotabot said:
			
		

> http://www.powertyping.com/
> 
> There are other sites as well.
> 
> ...



Learning Dvorak would be pain for me (I think)
I have never ever seen dvorak keyboard layout....
And if i need to work on some other PC (univercity for example or any other place, that i don't admin).... 100% there won't be Dvorak


I do, however, have a spear keyboard that I could swap keys to see how it feels like 


EDIT:
i made dvorak keyboard....
I can switch to english dvorak, but can't switch to lativian dvorak...

I might have to remap my keyboard....
this is getting interesting


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## Carpetsmoker (May 5, 2009)

It has never been proven that the dvorak layout is faster than the qwerty layout...


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## knotabot (May 5, 2009)

> Many operating systems based on UNIX, including OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Plan 9, and most Linux distributions, can be configured to use either the U.S. Dvorak layout or the UK/British Dvorak Layout. However, all current Unix-like systems with Xorg and appropriate keymaps installed (and virtually all systems meant for desktop use include them) are able to use any QWERTY layout as a Dvorak one without any problems or additional configuration. This removes the burden of producing additional keymaps for every variant of QWERTY provided.
> 
> UNIX Shell scripts are available for switching keymaps without restarting the machine or relaunching applications.





> The Dvorak layout was intended for the English language. In other European languages, letter frequencies, letter sequences, and digraphs differ from English. Also, many languages have letters that do not occur in English. For non-English use, these differences lessen the supposed advantages of the original Dvorak keyboard. However, the Dvorak principles have been applied to the design of keyboards for these other languages.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

There are keyboards with switches, having both qwerty and dvorak built in.



			
				Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> It has never been proven that the dvorak layout is faster than the qwerty layout...


O' contrar moncher (<--poor french)

What existed before Qwerty that Mr. Sholes should create the Qwerty layout? 
For what reason/s did he create the Qwerty layout?
To find this out you will have to read more than one Wikipedia article.

Any studies carried out by Mr. Strong can be considered biased. Also, all of Mr. Strong's original data for the studies he conducted were destroyed by him. This limits other peoples ability to reproduce and verify his results.



> The Dvorak layout was designed to address the problems of inefficiency and fatigue which characterized the QWERTY keyboard layout.





> The QWERTY layout was designed so that successive keystrokes would alternate between sides of the keyboard so as to avoid jams.


It was not designed for efficiency.


> Guinness Book of Records 1985 publication of Barbara Blackburnâ€™s achievement of 212 wpm using a Dvorak keyboard



Is Guiness Book of Records enough proof that it is faster?


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## SirDice (May 5, 2009)

knotabot said:
			
		

> What existed before Qwerty that Mr. Sholes should create the Qwerty layout?
> For what reason/s did he create the Qwerty layout?


Before qwerty? Nothing really.. The reason qwerty was created was to stop the hammers on a typewriter tangling up when typing.


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## Carpetsmoker (May 5, 2009)

> Any studies carried out by Mr. Strong can be considered biased. Also, all of Mr. Strong's original data for the studies he conducted were destroyed by him. This limits other peoples ability to reproduce and verify his results.



So, as I said, there is no proof.



> Is Guiness Book of Records enough proof that it is faster?



It proves that ONE PERSON can type very fast ona dvorak keyboard, it doesn't say how fast this person would be able to type on a qwerty layout or if this applies to the population as  whole.

So no, this doesn't prove a lot.



> The QWERTY layout was designed so that successive keystrokes would alternate between sides of the keyboard so as to avoid jams.



It was not designed for efficiency.[/quote][/quote]

This says nothing about the typing speed (or lack of speed) of the QWERTY layout, it doesn't really prove anything either.

Please note, I am not saying that the DVORAK layout isn't faster, maybe it is, but it has never been proven, and given the fact that the dvorak layout has been around for quite some years, I think there is at least some reason to at least doubt the claim that it is faster.
And the claim that it's twice as fast is very doubtable ...


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## hedwards (May 6, 2009)

knotabot said:
			
		

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard
> It was not designed for efficiency.


But The Dvorak was. The Dvorak was designed as an attempt to minimize the times that the same hand would be responsible for two consecutive characters whilst typing as a way of reducing straing.

The reason being that it was inefficient to have one hand going from key to key for prolong stretches while the other hand was idle. It might be faster, but that's definitely not something which could have been designed in when Dvorak was being developed.

In case you're wondering that was in 1936 whereas the QWERTY is much older. And Dvorak was trying to reduce fatigue and inefficiency of typist.

EDIT: And Dvoraks are basically completely useless in a multilingual setting, whereas QWERTY keyboards don't generally need a whole lot of tweaking depending upon the languages.

Modern Dvoraks put some emphasis on speed, but even then it's tied up strictly to efficiency and lack of fatigue, meaning that they'll never be the fastest possible keyboard.


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## lme@ (May 9, 2009)

Is dvorak good for programming?


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## hedwards (May 10, 2009)

lme@ said:
			
		

> Is dvorak good for programming?


Depends, if you're not using VI then possibly. If you are, then absolutely not.


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## lme@ (May 10, 2009)

Thanks, then dvorak is not for me.


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## knotabot (May 11, 2009)

> Another major hindrance to the adoption of Dvorak keyboards is the ubiquitous implementation of shortcut keys that assume use of QWERTY keyboards. For example, Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V (Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, respectively) are all conveniently located on the bottom row of the left hand in the QWERTY keyboard. Changes in layout and the effect they have on issuing commands via keyboard become still more dramatic with applications such as Emacs and Vim.


http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/Dvorak_vs_QWERTY



> There have been several studies exploring the comparison between Dvorak and Qwerty.  From the US Bureau of Standards, the US Navy, to several academic studies, the results and percentages vary, yet the Dvorak comes out on top.


http://www.dvorak-keyboards.com/Dvorak_vs_qwerty_keyboard_tests.htm



> In the 1920â€™s and 30s, August Dvorak and William Dealey
> designed the simplified keyboard, based on a research on old
> designs and hand philosophy and function.
> 
> ...


PDF of a Presentation @ behdad.org
If you do a google search can view as html.


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## skylab (Jun 11, 2009)

Here is a very nice page where you can learn to type, it contains a test, tutorial, tips and a game: Learn to Type


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