Questions about the Arabic keyboard
How do I type Arabic in my browser without installing a keyboard?
The Arabic keyboard on this page works straight in the browser, on a computer or a phone, with nothing to install and no sign-in. Tap the letters on the on-screen keyboard and they appear in the text box, or type on your computer keyboard and the Latin keys turn into Arabic automatically while "Map my computer keyboard to Arabic" is switched on. The diacritics row is always visible above the letters, and the ⇧ key shows the hamza forms and Arabic punctuation. When you are done, "Copy text" puts everything you typed on the clipboard so you can paste it into a message, a search or a document, and "Clear" empties the box so you can start again. Delete removes one letter or one diacritic per press. On a phone, the built-in phone keyboard only opens if you tap the text box itself.
How do I type Arabic with an English keyboard on a computer?
The Arabic keyboard on this page turns each Latin key into the Arabic letter on the same key in the standard Arabic computer layout, known as Arabic 101. So Q types ض, W types ص, A types ش, H types ا and M types ة. With Shift you get the diacritics and the hamza forms: Shift with Q types fatha, with E damma, with A kasra, with X sukun, with H the alef with hamza above, with Y the alef with hamza below, and with N the alef with madda. Caps Lock on its own does not turn letters into diacritics. If your computer is already set to an Arabic keyboard, the page leaves it alone, because it only maps Latin characters. The table below shows the Arabic for every key.
Where are hamza, taa marbuta and alef maqsura on the Arabic keyboard?
On the Arabic keyboard on this page, the standalone hamza ء and waw with hamza ؤ sit in the bottom row next to raa, and alef maqsura ى and taa marbuta ة sit in the same row next to waw. Pressing ⇧ shows the alef forms with hamza and madda, آ, أ and إ, along with لا, لآ, لأ and لإ, and the Arabic question mark ؟. ⇧ stays on until you press it again, so you can type several hamza forms in a row. Yeh with hamza ئ is in the diacritics row at the top, next to the standalone hamza. On a computer keyboard, the standalone hamza is on X, taa marbuta on M, alef maqsura on N, yeh with hamza on Z and waw with hamza on C. Keyboardy search treats the forms of alef and yeh as one letter, so a hamza never costs you a result.
Is the letter order here the standard Arabic keyboard order?
Yes for the top and middle rows. The top row of the Arabic keyboard on this page starts with ض, ص, ث and ق and ends with ج, and the middle row starts with ش, س, ي and ب and ends with ط; both rows match the standard Arabic computer layout. The bottom row differs slightly: on screen, ذ comes first and د last, while on a computer keyboard they sit on the ` key and the ] key. All three rows are taken as they are from the Arabic layout in the Keyboardy app for Android, so anyone who learns the positions here finds them in the same place in the app. Typing on a computer keyboard always follows the full standard layout, whatever the bottom row looks like on screen. The on-screen keyboard is the same on a computer and a phone, so the order never changes between devices.
Is what I type on the Arabic keyboard page saved?
No. Everything you type on the Arabic keyboard on this page stays in your browser and is never sent to Keyboardy or to any other server. The page has no form that submits the text and does not save it in browser storage, so if you close or reload the page the text is gone; copy it before you leave. The preview that shows how Keyboardy search reads your text is also worked out in the browser, using the same steps the server applies, with nothing sent. The hosting service the site runs on measures page visits and load speed only, and does not read the text box. That makes the Arabic keyboard here safe for typing something private. Once the page has loaded, the Arabic keyboard keeps working even if the connection drops.
What each key on an English keyboard types while mapping to Arabic is switched on here, following the standard Arabic layout (Arabic 101).
