How to see the current keyboard layout in Windows, i.e. which keys will give which symbols
Oct 28
I'm using a Swedish keyboard on my Windows 11 laptop, with three languages installed: English UK, English US, Swedish. I find it hard to work out where various symbols are if I'm using a different language than Swedish, since the location depends on current windows keyboard layout.
If I use Win+Space to change keyboard layout to Swedish then I can look at the physical keyboard. The symbols on each key indicate what character I'll get if I press that key. Obviously. But when I've switched to English UK or English US, is there a way to get a similar picture of the current windows keyboard layout, so I can see what character I'll get when I press each key? So I can see for example what happens if I press the key beneath the Esc key, or press the key to the left of the Backspace key.
Right now I tend to either
- fumble around pressing all the keys I can think of whenever I want a
~,#,\etc - or I use Win+Space to switch to a language that I know where the key is, type the symbol, then Win+Space a few times to switch back again.
It seems like xkeycaps does this sort of thing in Unix land.
1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
Nov 17
I use the KbdEdit software for that purpose.
It's paid software but does the job beautifully. Here's how English UK keyboard looks with SHIFT key pressed
I've used it for years to customize my keyboard layout (turn right CTRL into DEL among others)
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