Big Hands and an Itty-Bitty Keyboard

Touch Typing on Your H/PC

By Matthew Sheffield

The H/PC’s introduction in early 1997 was met with vociferous complaints about its small keyboard. However, as a user of HP’s older DOS-based palmtops with even closer placement of the keys, I welcomed the H/PCs’ new “big” keyboards. Still, they take some getting used to – and that is the key. Take the time necessary to become accustomed to the smaller keyboard and change the way you approach touch typing a little. You’ll be surprised at how proficient you’ll become. I’m even faster on my H/PC than several colleagues are on their full-size desktop keyboards.

Correct position of the hands and body

Many people make the mistake of trying to fit their entire hands on the H/PC keyboard. This is a recipe for aching fingers and plenty of mistakes – and it will not improve your typing speed! There’s just not enough room for eight fingers on the keyboard. Learn to touch type with six fingers, resting the little fingers (the pinkies) to the left and right of the keyboard. Below are my general recommendations for finger positioning. But since both the size of your hands and the size of H/PC keyboards vary, the exact positioning of your fingers may change. Use my positioning recommendations as a starting point and experiment.

I found body position to be more crucial with my handheld PC than with my desktop computer. Choosing the wrong body position can throw off the hand position, putting stress on the fingers and arms; causing aches, pains, and mistakes. Position your H/PC on a level surface. Modern computer desks are designed with a keyboard tray slightly below the level of the desktop. This is probably the best height to type from – below the desktop, slightly above the lap. Unfortunately, you can’t always find one of these computer desks to rest your H/PC on. Other good choices for level surfaces are table or desktops, or a book or briefcase resting in your lap. Try to pick a level surface that will allow your elbows to hang below the palmtop and take pressure off your hands and fingers.

Practice makes perfect

There’s a tendency for beginning typists to look at the keyboard as they type. Fortunately, your hands obscure your view of the keyboard, making it difficult to look at the keys as you type. Resist the urge to look at the keyboard and the display to see how you’re doing. If you have to, start out typing the old standby, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.” This phrase makes you hit all the letters on the keyboard. Type without looking at the keys, glancing from time to time to make sure your fingers are on home row. Don’t worry yourself too much about making the same mistakes. Gradually decrease the number of times you look at your keyboard and screen. After you have completed a section of text, go over it carefully, observing your most frequent errors. Work on those. (Many of my first mistakes came largely from the area covered by the right ring and little fingers.) Adjust your technique if necessary.

Learning to type is a physical skill, not a theory. You’ll need to put some attention on these principles as you use your H/PC. If you have the time you can get a typing textbook, or your favorite magazine and practice these principles. If not, keep them in mind and apply them as you use your H/PC. Over a short period of time you’ll see results.

Other ways to improve your speed and accuracy

Once you’ve got the basics of touch typing on the H/PC down, you’ll start to discover other shortcuts to speed things up that have nothing to do with hand and body position. One of the most important ways is to utilize the H/PCs built-in keystroke shortcuts.

Almost all of the built-in CE applications can be controlled completely without using the stylus to tap on the screen. Using these Windows CE keyboard shortcuts keeps your hands on the keyboard. You don’t have to stop, take out the stylus, and tap on the screen. Depending too much on the stylus is a sure way to slow things down a whole lot. Learning and using keyboard shortcuts lets you maintain a faster, more constant typing speed once you learn the keystrokes.

Since this article focuses mainly on Pocket Word, only its keyboard shortcuts will be listed. You can find keystrokes for the other applications in their respective help files. The Windows cursor movement keys are not mentioned here as well as the Pocket Word outline keystrokes. You’ll probably notice that most of these shortcuts are identical to those you use in your desktop word processor.

Focus on learning the keystroke shortcuts you use most often. Those will increase your typing speed the most. Another way to increase your speed and accuracy on the H/PC is to choose your screen fonts wisely. Many people use their H/PC to jot down quick thoughts, take notes, and compose memos while on the road. Part of entering data is checking it to make sure it’s correct. The H/PC’s smaller screen makes that a little more difficult, and the default fonts at 10 pts are just too small. Crank up the font size and experiment with the different fonts available in Pocket Word and Pocket Excel so you can see what you’ve typed. You can make the fonts as large as 22 pts in Word and 20 pts in Excel, and that is quite readable. You have a number of built in fonts to experiment with in Word and Excel. If those don’t suit you, other TrueType fonts can be imported. I liked Book Antiqua (on most PCs), or Verdana (available from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm). Be sure to use a medium font size like 12 or 14 as well. See your product manual for installing desktop fonts onto your H/PC.

Get to know your keyboard

As with anything, there is no substitute for good, solid practice. Keep practicing these techniques as often as your schedule allows you. If you find yourself making a consistent mistake, focus on correcting that. If possible, try to keep your practice sessions relatively close together. Take your palmtop with you for a weekend and you’ll appreciate the experience of getting to know your keyboard for the life of your machine.

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