Chromebook For Dummies

Chapter 4

Getting Your Hands on the Keyboard and Touchpad

In This Chapter

Taking a tour of the keyboard and touchpad

Learning about shortcut keys

Changing your keyboard and touchpad settings

Using an external keyboard and mouse

It’s hard telling whether Christopher Latham Sholes thought that his design and letter layout of the keyboard would still be in use well into the 21st century. Regardless of what his original intent was, his legacy is alive and well in the world today. When Sholes devised the layout and functionality of the keyboard that we use today, his intent was to reduce typewriter jams and speed up the typist. (Although some argued that the new arrangement of letters was really to slow down the typist and thus also reduce typewriter jams.)

Over the last 140 years, the keyboard has evolved very little. The basic layout of letters and numbers is the same, the only major additions have been adding multi-purpose keys like the ?/ key or the :; key. Additionally, with the advent of word processors and computers, keys like Caps Lock and Shift, as well as function keys (you ...