The period key (.)

This key, measured

Share of all characters

0.95%

Appears

once in 106 characters

Finger

R ring finger

Row

bottom row

period is not one of the letters: 633,068 of the 66,792,973 characters in the 111 public-domain books this site cuts its practice texts from — 0.95%, or once every 106. On a QWERTY keyboard it sits on the bottom row, so the right ring finger leaves the home row for it and has to come straight back. In the course it arrives in lesson 13, the X and period keys.

Keep going

Keep going

• Typing test

  Gross and net WPM, accuracy and keystrokes per hour — the figures typing exams use, at eight lengths from 15 seconds to 15 minutes.

• Typing lessons

  Fifteen short lessons, two new keys at a time, with the keyboard showing which finger goes where.

• Practice texts

  Type a passage from a classic book: real sentences, capitals and punctuation, with the numbers that say how hard each one is.

• Key drills

  A drill for each row, hand, finger and kind of character — and how much of English prose each set of keys actually carries.

• Typing speed

  What a speed means in characters, keystrokes per hour and minutes per page — and a test paced to the number you are aiming at.

• Weak keys

  A drill built from the keys you miss most, worked out from your own tests.

• Times tables

  Each table with its patterns, a drill that returns to what you got wrong, and a 60-second speed test.