By Achilles Hill | Last Updated
If you are unable to use the physical, external keyboard on your PC, how can you type in or control your computer? Don’t worry, there is a built-in Ease of Access tool in Windows 10 to replace a physical keyboard. That is On-Screen Keyboard, also called OSK, which shows a visual keyboard with all the standard keys. You can move the mouse to select keys and input anything you want. So, how can you turn on the On-Screen Keyboard and use it ? you can get specific tutorial below.
Here you can learn 6 common ways to enable On-Screen Keyboard in Windows 10.
Step 1: Enter PC settings.
Step 2: Select Ease of Access in the settings.
Step 3: Choose Keyboard, and tap the switch under On-Screen Keyboard to turn it on.
Press Windows+U to open the Ease of Access Center, and choose Start On-Screen Keyboard. Then you can use this keyboard to finish your work.
Press Windows+S to open the Search Menu, input on screen (or on screen keyboard) in the box, and tap On-Screen Keyboard in the results. Then click to Open it. In no time, the On-Screen Keyboard is displayed on your computer.
Step 1: Right-click the lower-left corner, and choose Run in the Quick Access Menu.
Step 2: Type osk and tap OK in the Run dialog. Instantly, the OSK shows up on your desktop.
Step 1: Click the Start button and choose Command Prompt in the Start Menu to open it.
Step 2: Enter osk in the Command Prompt and press Enter. Soon, you can see the On-Screen Keyboard on your computer.
Step 1: Click the Start button and choose Windows PowerShell in the Start Menu to open it.
Step 2: Type osk in Windows PowerShell window and hit Enter. Now the OSK is on the screen and you can use it as similar as physicial keyboard.
If you frequently use this On-Screen Keyboard, you can create On-Screen Keyboard shortcut, add On-Screen Keyboard to taskbar or start menu. Thus, you can open it much faster.
You can make an On-Screen Keyboard shortcut (see the following picture) on Windows 10 computer desktop according to the guidance illustrated below.
Step 1: Right-tap blank area, expand New on the context menu and choose Shortcut in the options.
Step 2: When the Create Shortcut window appears, type osk in the empty box and click Next.
Step 3: Enter On-Screen Keyboard in the name box if you dislike the default description, and then hit Finish.
It is easy to add OSK to taskbar so that you can directly open it via the taskbar.
Step 1: Access Start Menu.
Step 2: Choose All apps, open Windows Ease of Access, right-click On-Screen Keyboard and tap Pin to taskbar in the list.
From the following picture, you can see that the On-Screen Keyboard is added to Start Menu in Windows 10 computer. So that you can quickly open On-Screen Keyboard from start menu.
Step 1: Open alphabet in Start Menu and choose W.
Step 2: Select Windows Ease of Access, right-click On-Screen Keyboard and hit Pin to Start in the options.
If you want to remove On-Screen Keyboard from the Start Menu, you can right-tap On-Screen Keyboard, and choose Unpin from Start in the list.
When you enable the On-Screen Keyboard, you will find it is similar to the physical keyboard. But there is something in different. How can you use it? Or is it possible to change the settings? Yes, you can get a short guide below.
1. Make On-Screen Keyboard Transparent. There is a Fade key on the keyboard. Choose it and then you can fade the keyboard immediately.
2. Show Fn Keys. When you press Fn key on the On-Screen Keyboard, Fn keys—from F1 to F12 appears on the keyboard.
3. Customize On-Screen Keyboard settings:
You can click Options on the keyboard. After that, you can get a series of settings you can change according to your habits.
Option 1: Turn on or turn off click sound. You can tick or untick the checkbox of Use click sound and choose the OK button to turn on or off the click sound.
Option 2: Turn on/off numeric key pad. You can tick the box of Turn on numeric key pad and tap OK in the Options dialog. In a few seconds, you can see the numeric key pas is shown on the On-Screen Keyboard. If you do not want numeric key pad, just uncheck this option.
Option 3: Choose the typing mode. There are three modes for you: clicking mode, hovering mode and scanning mode.
On the center part of Options dialog, you can choose Click on keys, Hover over keys or Scan through keys. Most people choose the mode—Click on key. And they can select a key to use: three options are provided at the bottom of this part. By default, Use mouse click is chosen. If you choose Hover over keys, you can move the scale to left or right to shorten or lengthen the hover duration. For the scanning mode, you can move the scale to change the scanning speed.
Option 4: Enable or disable Text Prediction. To use Text Prediction, you can check the box of Use Text Prediction option at the last part of the Option dialog. If you do not want to use it, just uncheck this option.
Option 5: Control whether the On-Screen Keyboard starts when sign in. On the Options window, there is a blue text—Control whether the On-Screen Keyboard starts when I sign in. You can click it and get on option to use On-Screen Keyboard. You can select or deselect Use On-Screen Keyboard and then hit the OK button.
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