Turn On And Customise The On-Screen Keyboard – For Mac OS

How To Change The Settings So That The Keyboard Is More Accessible Or Can Be Used On-Screen.

There are a number of ways you can adapt your computer to make it easier to use the keyboard. These guides explain how to customise your operating system (Windows or Mac ), so that you can use the keyboard with one hand, for instance, or minimise accidental keystrokes. You can also set up the on-screen keyboard and learn shortcuts and other tricks to reduce the amount of typing you need to do.

Here is a way to do this…

Turn on and customise the on-screen keyboard

Activate your operating system’s virtual keyboard, so you can use a mouse, switch or other devices instead of a physical keyboard.

Windows 7
Mac OS X

How To Use The On-Screen Keyboard In Mac OS X

This page explains step-by-step how to turn on and use the on-screen keyboard in Mac OS X. An on-screen keyboard may be the best way to input information if you have a physical condition that makes using a keyboard difficult but you are able to use a mouse or other pointing device.

An on-screen keyboard looks just like a picture of a keyboard on the screen. Letters can be selected from the keyboard using a mouse, a single switch or a joystick.

Note: The following abbreviations for keys on the Mac are used: Ctrl is used for the Control key, Apple is used for the Command key, and Alt is used for the Option key. For keyboard access, make sure ‘Full keyboard access’ is turned on – you can turn it on or off by pressing Ctrl + F1 at any time.

Step 1: Set up the on-screen keyboard

Make sure you are in ‘Finder’. If necessary, press Apple + Tab to cycle through the open applications until you return to ‘Finder’.

Click on the ‘Apple‘ icon on the menu bar or press Ctrl + F2.

Click on ‘System Preferences‘, as shown in Fig 1, or press the down arrow key to highlight it and then press Enter.

Fig 1

Click on the ‘International‘ icon, as shown in Fig 2, or press Tab repeatedly (you might need to press Ctrl + F7 first) to cycle through the icons until the ‘International’ icon is highlighted and then press the Spacebar.

Fig 2

In the ‘International’ window (Fig 3), make sure the ‘Input Menu‘ tab is selected. If it is not, click on it, or press Ctrl + F7 to highlight one of the tabs and then press the left or right arrow key to select it.

To turn the Keyboard Viewer on, tick the box next to ‘Keyboard Viewer‘ by clicking on it (there is no keyboard shortcut for this).

Tick the box next to ‘Show input menu in menu bar‘ by clicking on it. Or press Tab until it is highlighted and then press the Spacebar to tick it.

Fig 3

Click on the ‘International’ window’s red close button or press Apple + W.

Step 2: Turn on the on-screen Keyboard Viewer

To view the keyboard, click on the ‘International’ (flag) icon near the upper right corner of the menu bar. Select ‘Show Keyboard Viewer‘ from the drop-down menu as shown in Fig 4. (There is no keyboard shortcut for this).

Fig 4