Different keyboard layouts

Cherry Keyboards are available in a variety of language versions and it’s worth mentioning  the differences between a standard UK layout and two other ‘English’ language types.

A UK Keyboard contains 105 keys - this is the sort of keyboard shipped with most standard PC’s - though recently some manufacturers have taken to including Multimedia products with their systems, which allow the control of packages like Windows Media Player or iTunes. However, although these are additional keys, they do not change the actual layout of the main keyboard.

Occasionally, PC’s are shipped with one of two alternative English layout keyboards - US English or EU. Whilst they are very similar to a UK keyboard, there are some important differences:

1.  A UK Keyboard contains 105 keys. EU or US keyboards have 104 - the key that’s missing is the one between the left-shift and the ‘Z’, that contains the \ and | symbols.
2. US and EU keyboards have a straight Enter key - UK keyboards have an inverted ‘L’ shape enter.
3. There is no £ sign on a US or EU keyboard
4. There is no € symbol on a US keyboard - on a UK keyboard it’s accessed by holding down ALT-GR and 4, on an EU keyboard by holding down ALT-GR and 5.
5. On EU and US keyboards, the # key is on the number 3 - on a UK keyboard this is next to the enter key
6. The number 2 key on US and EU keyboards contains the @ symbol. This is on the key next to the # symbol on a UK keyboard.

If you connect a keyboard to your system that’s different in layout to the one the system is set to, it will continue to operate as the system language. There is no ID within the keyboard to specify the language and Windows determines how the keyboard types.

Each country has it’s own specific layout - some examples are:

GB = UK English, US = US English, EU = European English, ES = Spanish, DE = German, FR = French, AR = US/Arabic, IT = Italian, SF = Swedish/Finnish, DK = Danish, RB = Cyrillic