How to activate the native virtual keyboard of windows 10 【step by step】

If you've ever suffered from a deadly keyboard slip or just can't count on it, you should have a Plan B. As if it were an emergency flashlight, you should always have the virtual keyboard at hand, know how to open it and how to configure it.

It is possible that you have found yourself in this annoying situation from time to time and have had to resort to turning the house upside down looking for another keyboard.

Either because you have dropped a little water and you have loaded it or because you have lost it, the virtual keyboard can be your temporary solution. It is quite a useful tool in important situations and is very easy to deploy.

Index of contents

The virtual keyboard on the initial screen

The first place where we may need the virtual keyboard is the home screen, usually the first barrier.

For whatever reason in the world we do not have a keyboard at hand and the password or pin is activated. What can we do? Well the answer is rather simple: activate the virtual keyboard.

The virtual keyboard is an auxiliary function to facilitate the use of computers in specific cases or for people with special needs. That is why, on the same home screen, we find a button that takes us to these help options, the Accessibility button .

Accessibility button

Virtual keyboard option

On-screen virtual keyboard displayed

Once we are at this point we can easily navigate over the keys to write passwords (watch out!) And anything else we need. As you can see, we have a full keyboard in the absence of a numeric keyboard, although having to navigate it with the mouse, we do not miss it very much either.

Virtual keyboard on the computer

If we want to access the keyboard anywhere in the system we only have to follow these simple steps:

• Open to Windows menu

Start button options

• At first, among the listed options, open the ' Windows Accessibility ' folder

Virtual keyboard option

• Select the 'On-screen keyboard' option

Virtual keyboard deployed

Ok, now that we have clear how to deploy the keyboard we will have to configure it so that it is as we like. It is not that we can fiddle too much, but better to know what we play and do it well to go blind and headless, right?

Configure virtual keyboard

To access the options is easy, we press the button with the same name.

In this first image we will see the basic configuration that we will all have when opening the keyboard for the first time. Most of the options are quite self-explanatory, but let's summarize them slightly.

Virtual keyboard options

The first of these is for the keyboard to return a sound response. If we have it activated, each time we press a key a click will sound, the truth, a bit annoying.

The second default option is the inclusion of the five keys on the right side. They are Nav, Up, Down, Dock and Attenuate, which will help us to interact quickly with the keyboard.

Virtual keyboard navigation bar (Nav)

• Nav serves to reduce the keyboard to a list of 7 or 8 buttons to navigate a web, in principle. Up and Down puts the keyboard at the top of the screen or at the bottom so that it does not hinder us. Since the keyboard is always on the top layer, you will get used to covering up some applications. Docking will almost never be active, but it serves to put the keyboard pieces together. Dimming serves to make the keyboard transparent, thereby revealing the background.

Virtual keyboard enabled options

The numeric keypad option is pretty obvious. Up here we see the expansion of new keys, which take up a lot of screen space. We can use them as navigation keys or as the classic numerical keyboard if we activate Num Lock.

Option activated: “scroll over the keys”

Later, we will see the three methods of interacting with the keyboard:

1. Click on the keys: Used to use the keyboard in the common way. You press a key and the letter or symbol is printed directly. Scroll over the keys: It is a special method by which the keys are pressed if we hold the mouse over them. It is the image above and we can see the time from when the key is preselected until it is pressed. Browse Keys: This mode is used to continuously browse the keyboard. You can interact with it with auxiliary devices such as joysticks, buttons and more.

Finally, text prediction, which is nothing more than a support to write more agilely.

• The base text prediction option is what you will assume, it detects in real time what you will write (or most likely you will write) and suggests a word to write it instantly. On the other hand, the other option is used, after adding a recommendation, to include a space.

Then, as an extra, we have a dropdown option that will allow us to indicate other options to the system. Among them we find " Use On-Screen Keyboard" so that the virtual keyboard starts when the computer is turned on.

conclusion

Whatever your cause or experience, if you need the virtual keyboard, here is a tutorial with all the relevant data you will need. We hope that it has helped you and that you have understood it easily.

We recommend reading the best keyboards on the market

It never hurts to have an extra option when you run out of options.

If you have any questions , tell us in the comment box!