Five Finger Typist

Five Finger Typist - One Handed Typing Tutor for Windows and Macintosh

Five Finger Typist is a typing tutor for people who want to learn to type with one hand. It teaches the accepted keyboarding technique for one-handed touch typing on the standard (QWERTY) keyboard. Learn a life-long skill which can be used on any computer, tablet or phone. No need for a specialised one-handed keyboard which has to be transported around with the user.

Five Finger Typist is a set of structured typing lessons which first teach the home position and then progressively introduce new keys while revising keys already learnt. 21 lessons teach all letters, numbers and some punctuation marks.
An animated hand on the screen shows the correct hand movement as keys are typed.

It is easy to customise Five Finger Typist to assist learning

Choose from 5 screen-font sizes - standard to very large
Typing sounds can be turned on during typing exercises
A typing-error sound can be chosen
hear an audio prompt of the next keys to type
the key you typed can be spoken
a typewriter sound is made when you type
You can save your typing hand, the last lesson worked and other settings so you can start next time with the same setup.

Five Finger Typist is extremely easy to use. It's not necessary to master complex concepts to use the program.

Suitable for child or adult
Either the right, or left, hand can be chosen easily
Opens up new communication skills - email, letters, social media, applications and computer games
Touch typing skills assist students in all levels of learning
Touch typing skills assist adults in communication and employment
Lessons are graded, starting with simple exercises
A self-paced typing program

System Requirements

WINDOWS: Windows 7 to 10, Vista, Windows XP and 2000, Windows 98 and 95MAC: Mac OS 10.3 and later (including Mac OS 10.11, El Capitan) running on both Intel and PowerPC processors; Version 2.2 for Mac OS X coming soon.

How 5 Finger Typist Works

The advent of personal computers has made touch typing an important skill. Five Finger Typist teaches one-handed touch typing for both the right and left hands. The hand to be used is easily chosen.
As with traditional touch typing, one handed typing has a "home position" or "home keys". These are the group of keys from which all key strokes are made and to where the hand returns. The home position acts as an anchor and resting place between keystrokes. With one handed typing the home keys are: f, g, h and j
The guides drawn over the keyboard illustrate the keyboarding technique for the one handed typist. They show the keys struck by each finger. Key strokes are all made from the home position.
Assuming you are using the left hand, all keys to the right of the guides are struck with the first finger. Keys to their left are struck with the little finger. The keys between the guides are struck with the second, or third, finger reaching up, or down, from its home key.
If you are using the right hand, the role of the first and little finger is reversed. In Five Finger Typist the first 3 lessons introduce the home keys and the technique of one-handed touch typing. Thereafter each new lesson teaches two new characters, or is a revision lesson. In each lesson there are about 12 lines of exercises which initially teach typing of the new characters in relation to the home position.
Overall there are 21 lessons which teach all letters, the numbers and the grammar keys . , - ; and return.
The early lessons are a little boring as not many letters have been learnt so the exercises are mechanical and repetitive. However, words, phrases and sentences are included as quickly as the known letters allow.
When you type, the hand on the screen shows the correct hand movement.
The "Typing Tutor" menu allows you to access various features of the program
You can easily choose the hand you want to type with - click on "Right Hand" to change from left hand (the start-up default).
"Customise..." allows you to change the screen font size from standard to large, or medium and to turn on audio of keys typed and typing errors.
Use "Go To Lesson..." to move backwards and forwards between lessons to practice particular letters.
Click on "Statistics" to check your typing accuracy.
Print what you have typed at any time.

Download demo

Windows
Macintosh