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December 4 Information

Keyboard misbehaving - typing the wrong symbols.

My keyboard has started misbehaving. When I try to type a tilde I get | instead. When I try to type a hash I get \. When I try to type the AT sign I get ", when I try to type a pound sign I get # instead. Quotation marks give @ instead. What has happened and how can I fix it please? DuncanHill ( talk) 17:08, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

You have a British keyboard but your OS thinks it is American - see British and American keyboards#Windows keyboards -- Finlay McWalter··–· Talk 17:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I restarted my machine and it's reverted to normal. I would still be interested to know why it suddenly decided to become foreign. DuncanHill ( talk) 17:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
There are key combinations that change keyboard layout. Depends on your operating system. Google stuff like hotkey change keyboard layout. You had a fat finger moment where you accidentally hit a magic combination. We all do that. You could explore your OS's keyboard settings and see if you can restrict which layouts are allowed so you have less of a chance of doing it again. 85.76.45.42 ( talk) 17:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I am amazed that your restart solved your issue, because keyboard layout can persist. You haven't mentioned your OS at all. There are many cues for international layout changes; there may be a flag icon or a two-letter country code displayed in your status bar somewhere. Most OSes with changing layouts will not omit a status indicator of this type, all it takes is the knowledge to recognize it. Elizium23 ( talk) 22:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Computing desk
< December 3 << Nov | December | Jan >> Current desk >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


December 4 Information

Keyboard misbehaving - typing the wrong symbols.

My keyboard has started misbehaving. When I try to type a tilde I get | instead. When I try to type a hash I get \. When I try to type the AT sign I get ", when I try to type a pound sign I get # instead. Quotation marks give @ instead. What has happened and how can I fix it please? DuncanHill ( talk) 17:08, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

You have a British keyboard but your OS thinks it is American - see British and American keyboards#Windows keyboards -- Finlay McWalter··–· Talk 17:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I restarted my machine and it's reverted to normal. I would still be interested to know why it suddenly decided to become foreign. DuncanHill ( talk) 17:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
There are key combinations that change keyboard layout. Depends on your operating system. Google stuff like hotkey change keyboard layout. You had a fat finger moment where you accidentally hit a magic combination. We all do that. You could explore your OS's keyboard settings and see if you can restrict which layouts are allowed so you have less of a chance of doing it again. 85.76.45.42 ( talk) 17:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I am amazed that your restart solved your issue, because keyboard layout can persist. You haven't mentioned your OS at all. There are many cues for international layout changes; there may be a flag icon or a two-letter country code displayed in your status bar somewhere. Most OSes with changing layouts will not omit a status indicator of this type, all it takes is the knowledge to recognize it. Elizium23 ( talk) 22:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

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