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From Colemak
Introduction
The QWERTY layout was designed in the 19th century. Colemak is a modern alternative to the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts, designed for efficient and ergonomic touch typing in English.
Learning Colemak is a one-time investment that will allow you to enjoy faster and pain-free typing for the rest of your life. Colemak is now the 3rd most popular keyboard layout for touch typing in English, after QWERTY and Dvorak and comes pre-installed on Windows, Mac and Linux systems.
The layout
On a US keyboard, keyboards in other regions will vary slightly
Learn more
- Read the FAQ
- Read reviews and experiences from people who made the switch in the forum or subreddit. Get live answers to questions in the Discord server.
- Learn the layout with a typing tutor of your choice
- Download – Pre-installed on Mac and Linux and Windows for versions newer than Windows 11 24H2. Download available for older versions of Windows and Unix.
Advantages
- Ergonomic and comfortable – Your fingers on QWERTY move 2.2x more than on Colemak. QWERTY has 16x more same hand row jumping than Colemak. There are 35x more words you can type using only the home row on Colemak.
- Easy to learn – Allows easy transition from QWERTY. Only 2 keys move between hands. Many common shortcuts (including Ctrl+Z/X/C/V) remain the same. Typing lessons available.
- Fast – Most of the typing is done on the strongest and fastest fingers. Low same-finger ratio.
- Multilingual – Allows to type in over 40 languages and to type various symbols, e.g. "pâté", "mañana", €, em-dash, non-breaking space.
- Free – Free software released under the public domain. You don't have to buy a new keyboard, just install a program.
Misc
- Colemak Mod-DH - an unofficial variant that reduces usage of the center columns.
- Colemak.org community site
- Dreymar's Big Bag Of Kbd Tricks mods for ergonomics beyond the keyboard layout, and implementations for several platforms.