What Is Your Typing Speed on a Standard QWERTY Keyboard?

[Joma Frand]

But the fastest typer in the world could do 212 on a special keyboard. (DAMN! Is it that good? I heard stories that some guy who could only do 50 WPM on a qwerty keyboard could do over a 100 on this different one..i got to try it out)

This is not true, she is not the worlds fastest typest.
The record books may say so, but I know for a fact this is not true.
Also, on another webpage, it says the worlds fastest typest on a standard QWERTY keyboard only types 158 WPM, also no true.

I as a court stenographer had to type at a minimum of 225 WPM shorthand to obtain the position. As proof that "The Worlds Fastest Typest" does not only type 212, I have attached proof. If further proof is needed I will do a demostration on cam, to prove I am not using a Macro program. I can also maintain a speed of 190 WPM, constantly, 99% accuracy, asides from my damn spelling errors.

 

[Rach3]

Um, shorthand?

 

[Gelsamel Epsilon]

About 60wpm at 100% accuracy with an online test, I have to say though I type a lot faster when typing what I want to type and not reciting some story off the net.

 

[JamesU]

z am typing this really fast ebcsuse I am agood tyer

^that took about 7 seconds

 

[rhuthwaite]

I type as fast as you can looking down at the keyboard and using a max of 4 fingers

 

[JasonRox]

I type as fast as you can looking down at the keyboard and using a max of 4 fingers

Start using 5.

I remember in elementary school that our goal was only to reach 20 words per minute and those who got 30 was like...

 

[JamesU]

Start using 5.

I remember in elementary school that our goal was only to reach 20 words per minute and those who got 30 was like...

 

[Danger]

I took typing in grades 9 & 10 only. First year was with Olympia manual machines, and we moved to Selectric II's next year. Of course, the keys were blank, so we had to know where everything was. I bought myself a Facit 1850 and used that until I got my Atari 800 with Atariwriter software.
What irritates me is that computers have slowed me down. While I could routinely do 120wpm on the typewriter, I'm down to about 80 on a regular keyboard. I was taught to rest my fingers on home row when not using them, and the computer sensitivity keeps setting off the home row keys when I don't want them. It's even worse now on this iBook. (yes! I finally got it.) The flat keyboard and honking wide wrist shelf keep me from holding my hands in the correct position. I think that I'm doing about 50wpm on it.

 

[Moonbear]

My wireless keyboard has slowed my typing speed. If I type too fast, it gets confused and sends weird strings of characters to the computer (I'm being serious, not joking about bad typing). I need to replace it with a corded keyboard, but I'm still fighting with the cat over mouse ownership, so I'm not going to introduce another tempting cord just yet.

 

[Moonbear]

The flat keyboard and honking wide wrist shelf keep me from holding my hands in the correct position. I think that I'm doing about 50wpm on it.

I think this is why folks have started noticing so much carpal tunnel syndrome associated with typing. I mean, I'm sure typists got it in the past, but it was never a prevalent complaint. Keyboards are so much flatter than typewriters, and if anything, wrist rests seem to encourage more problems. On a typewriter, you never rested your wrists anywhere, but that was possible because your fingertips were instead resting on the keys, which you can't do with a keyboard.

 

[NoTime]

This is not true, she is not the worlds fastest typest.
The record books may say so, but I know for a fact this is not true.
Also, on another webpage, it says the worlds fastest typest on a standard QWERTY keyboard only types 158 WPM, also no true.

I as a court stenographer had to type at a minimum of 225 WPM shorthand to obtain the position. As proof that "The Worlds Fastest Typest" does not only type 212, I have attached proof. If further proof is needed I will do a demostration on cam, to prove I am not using a Macro program. I can also maintain a speed of 190 WPM, constantly, 99% accuracy, asides from my damn spelling errors.

IIRC typing WPM is based on a standard average word length of 5 characters.
So multiplying WPM by 6 (counting the space) gives characters per minute.

If you're doing shorthand the word length is shorter, so you should be able to type more words.

I don't know what the standard shorthand word length is.
Without that information a comparison is meaningless.

edit to add quote

 

[NoTime]

I think this is why folks have started noticing so much carpal tunnel syndrome associated with typing. I mean, I'm sure typists got it in the past, but it was never a prevalent complaint. Keyboards are so much flatter than typewriters, and if anything, wrist rests seem to encourage more problems. On a typewriter, you never rested your wrists anywhere, but that was possible because your fingertips were instead resting on the keys, which you can't do with a keyboard.

I think part of the problem is that keyboards usually end up on desks.
Not at the right height like the old typewriter tables.

I think the one I have is like the one the OP was upset about because his broke.
It feels much more like the typewriter keyboards than most.
I hate laptop keyboards

I type pretty slow.
But then I think slower

 

[Pythagorean]

first time: 77/70 wpm, 90% accuracy

second time: 88/80 wpm, 93% accuracy

 

[moose]

Last time I did a typing test I got
(When trying to type as fast as I possibly could)
122 - 98% accurate
(When typing at a normal steady rate that I can sustain for really long)
105 - 100% accuracy

 

[Danger]

Just out of curiosity, was anyone else taught to type staccato, to music? My teacher played marching tunes such a Sousa. He taught us to work like a 3-round-burst Baretta. (Type about 5-8 characters per second, pause for 1/4 or 1/2 second, then take another blast at it.) We were also taught to treat each character individually, rather than a whole word at a time. To this day, I spell out the words as I type them.

 

[rhuthwaite]

Thats strange I might try that! The only time I learned to do things stacatto was on the piano... you must be musical

 

[Danger]

I am, in fact, just learning to play the radio.

(You don't want to know what I learned to do on a piano, but it's not nearly as hard to clean up as a pool table.)

 

[rhuthwaite]

ahh that's a difficult one haven't mastered that yet

 

[Danger]

Hmmm... your post in the other thread would tend to contradict that.

 

[rhuthwaite]

Haha Shhh keep that on the low down!

 

[Danger]

No worries there; I am the lowest of the low. In fact, I'm constantly entreated to get my mind out of the gutter and back into the sewer where it belongs.

 

[rhuthwaite]

Aww you can't be that bad. Maybe not good but surely no one is that low

 

[Danger]

Well... I have to stand on a ladder to tickle a dust mite's belly...

 

[rhuthwaite]

Do you like it down there?

 

[Danger]

As long as I'm wearing nose plugs...

Looks like a taco, smells like fish, tastes like chicken, and they say that you're not supposed to eat it...?

 

[Pythagorean]

As long as I'm wearing nose plugs...

Looks like a taco, smells like fish, tastes like chicken, and they say that you're not supposed to eat it...?

I think it's all good as long as you don't masticate

 

[Danger]

Unless, of course, one lucks upon a Masochist who likes to be masticated.

 

[Moonbear]

Just out of curiosity, was anyone else taught to type staccato, to music? My teacher played marching tunes such a Sousa. He taught us to work like a 3-round-burst Baretta. (Type about 5-8 characters per second, pause for 1/4 or 1/2 second, then take another blast at it.) We were also taught to treat each character individually, rather than a whole word at a time. To this day, I spell out the words as I type them.

I wasn't taught that way, but it sounds like a good way to avoid typos. I think it would be easier to type by letter when typing up something written by someone else than when you're composing from your own thoughts. When I'm typing my own thoughts, I'm thinking words and typing letters...not at all sure how my fingers know what they're doing. But, if I were to attempt to type from someone else's handwritten notes, yeah, it's probably safest to just look at each character than try to read each word. I'm sure that was really important in the days when everyone had a secretary to type stuff for them, and the boss might be using technical terminology that the secretary wouldn't know, so just type the letters. (I have heard some funny stories of words being mistyped throughout an entire disseration because the typist couldn't read someone's handwriting or didn't know the term so assumed it was something else more familiar...other than the stress of having to have your entire dissertation retyped, it sounds like an amusing version of Mad-libs...at least some 30 years later these folks are looking back and laughing at it ).

 

[Joma Frand]

IIRC typing WPM is based on a standard average word length of 5 characters.
So multiplying WPM by 6 (counting the space) gives characters per minute.

If you're doing shorthand the word length is shorter, so you should be able to type more words.

I don't know what the standard shorthand word length is.
Without that information a comparison is meaningless.

edit to add quote

Yes, this is true. But if you look up the program "All The Right Type", which is the image that I posted, you'll see it is not in shorthand, but normal text.

 

[280Z28]

30wpm right now with strictly-proper touch typing :)

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=150292

 

[Alkatran]

I take this test every once in awhile and always score around 100 wpm. That's all good and great, but how useful is this test, really?

I almost never come across cases where I need to blindly copy words from a page to a computer, so what's the point of measuring my typing speed on that type of task? I know I can't think up text to write at 100 wpm, so what does it matter that I type that fast?

To make matters worse, the majority of my typing is programming! Not only is this a creative process, but a lot of the time is just me trying to get where I need to type!

 

[Moonbear]

I take this test every once in awhile and always score around 100 wpm. That's all good and great, but how useful is this test, really?

I almost never come across cases where I need to blindly copy words from a page to a computer, so what's the point of measuring my typing speed on that type of task? I know I can't think up text to write at 100 wpm, so what does it matter that I type that fast?

It's pretty irrelevant nowadays. Tests of typing speed were more important back in the days of secretarial pools where someone would hand a secretary their handwritten notes and the secretary would need to type them up. Nowadays, you're usually composing your thoughts as you're typing, so that's necessarily slower than just copying text (and copy/paste is much faster than retyping something if you do need to pull out an excerpt from something else verbatim).

I think what's only relevant now is if your typing speed is so slow that it is the limiting factor in how fast you can work (i.e., you think through an idea and then spend forever pecking at keys, while your thoughts are already well ahead of where you're typing).

 

[animal12737]

typing speed

my son who is seveteen has had the record in school his best score is 179wpm with 100% accuracy