Ask advice: How to label keyboard keys?

Easy… don’t label them at all! There is a company that sells the ‘Das Keyboard’ which has no labels at all. Apparently it increases your typing speed greatly, but forcing you to use the right fingers for the right keys and stops you looking down at the keyboard (as their is no reason to). Looking at the keyboard I’d say you type ‘yes’ and ‘no’ lots :).

Hello Benjamin,

Fortunately I can touch type, so if I am typing a lot I don’t need to look at the keys, but the problem is if I am just pressing a few keys and then I frequently get confused.

The Y key actually fine and not showing any sign of wear, so I think it must just be no I type a lot!

i have quickly looked at this website

http://www.latkey.com/glowing_stickers.asp?SubCat=14
how about that?
its probably more expensive than an new keyboad tho,
depends if you have a material value for that one

Thank you englishman for the link. I haven’t seen those stickers before, the closest I’ve got is very large letters to make it easier to read the keys.

I have considered using the stickers or perhaps transfers, but I’m worried they will start peeling off. My best idea for keeping the stickers on is clear nail varnish.

Seeing as how it’s a black keyboard, it’s a little difficult to grab a sharpie and fill them in but, I would still recommend a simple solution like a metallic sharpie, better to have the ultra fine or something and fill them in, that might work. And for future keyboards, you should try a protector, or maybe a piece of suran wrap 😉

Hello Manda,

Thank you for the comment, I found it very intriguing because I have never heard of a metallic sharpie before! It is good idea to use a light coloured pen, I have been considering using stickers or transfers. However I am aware that I have rubbed the letters off the keys so I am worried about the staying power, so I have been considering using clear nail varnish over the top.

Next time, I think I will invest in a more expensive keyboard and hope they have printed the letters all the way through the key!

Sharpie wears off within a few days… I know this from experience! I have a light-grey keyboard and used a black sharpie to write in four letters that had worn off from regular use. I did that on Thursday and the letters are already almost gone (Saturday)! I can touch type, but I sometimes use my laptop in therapy sessions to play educational games with young clients, so I need the letters to be visible. Did anybody come up with any solutions to this problem? I can buy individual keys on Ebay, but at almost $4 a key I’d rather not do that. I have looked for decals but haven’t found anything yet.

Any suggestions?

Sarah,

I had not thought about buying spare keys. At the moment I have used adhesive labels on my keys, however some of them are starting to curl at the edges so I now need to find away of varnishing them and see if that helps them stay down.

About 6 keys on my black (notebook) keyboard have almost completely worn off, so I’m going to replace them with white rub-off lettering finished with several coats of clear nail varnish. This has happened to every keyboard I’ve ever had but I’ve never tried to replace the letters before; just hope it works!

Hello pussycat,

I have used adhesive stickers and nail varnish on my keys. I’ve only used one layer of nail varnish, but I will add another layer when I see the gloss start disappearing from the keys.

The Letraset worked ok but I had real problems with the nail varnish, as it just dissolved the Letraset on contact (DOH!) I realise I should probably have keyboard stickers but anyone know where to get ‘normal’ sized letters (as opposed to oversized ones) in English?

Hello pussycat,

Unless you are in the UK I can’t help you on where to source stickers. I got mine from a local general store. My best suggestion is to try a stationers.

Key board decals last about as long as the letters on ur keys do .. I bought mine in june . some are dead .. others are getting

Hi Amy,

I used stickers and nail varnish on my keys in March 2008 and after about 6 months some of the stickers were starting to show wear. I probably could have prevented further erosion of the letter by applying more nail varnish, but I needed to purchase a keyboard with a USB fitting so replaced my old keyboard.

So far my new keyboard is showing no wear, but it appears the letters are all stuck on so we will see how it does.

You really have to be careful where you get the key stickers. Many of them are just printed on thin vinyl.

I found some at Smart Keyboard Solutions (http://www.smartkeyboardsolutions.com/alpha-replacement-labels.htm).

They print theirs on Lexan which is tougher. The print is on the underside of the sticker so you can’t rub the ink off. It’s a workable solution, especially when you are dealing with a laptop keyboard or very expensive keyboard that costs too much to replace.

I too was going to suggest nail polish. I have a very very new (less than 4 months old) Logitech wave keyboard and the lettering has disappeared from many of the keys. I do touch type, however, I do need to “look” for the “Ctrl”, “Alt” and “delete” keys; plus, others do use my computer who do not touch type. I haven’t tried it as yet, however, I have an old Dell keyboard that I used for years and it’s lettering is still intact – the keys pop off of the boards so it may be possible to substitute the old for the new.

I’ve just been looking for some labels to turn my old Atari Mega STE, from a French language to a UK English keyboard layout. After tweaking my Google search terms for half an hour, I managed to find some Lexan type blank labels, that you can write on and they do not smudge due to being underneath the surface. Hopefully this USA based store ships to the United Kingdom / England.

I have used stick-on keyboard labels successfully for years.

Originally I tried painting the keys with white-out correction liquid and writing on it with an ink-gel pen. That looked good but did not last very long. I then tried printing out all the letters I needed in a fairly large font on adhesive address labels, cutting them out with small scissors and applying them to the keys. That worked well but always looks messy and eventually they got rather dirty looking too. My final solution, to buy adhesive labels has been a great success. I was able to buy sets of them from a firm in New York City which produces them for scores of different languages and keyboard layouts. They were very cheap, about $3.00 per set. These enabled me to convert a US style keyboard into a bilingual Russian/American keyboard.

For my main keyboard I bought a set of labels from a firm in Quebec that produces them for Canadian keyboard layouts — http://www.beaujoie.com. My preferred keyboard layout is the Canadian Multilingual Standard style and I had difficulty buying such a keyboard in my region but the adhesive labels from Beaujoie have been excellent. I have had them for about five years with no significant deterioration.

Buy letter stickers from smiths and stick them on the keyboard.Problem solved.

I’ve seen people covering their keyboard with washi tape and you could write on that with pencil.

I can’t believe the letters have worn off so quickly, what a pain! Like you I touch type but would still feel slightly lost if the letters were to wear off my keys.
#blogclub

I never though about labeling keyboard before but first thing which comes to mind is an art nail polish brush / pen and a nail polish – not sure it would work but it might… What do you think?