Enable and Add New Input Method in On Screen Keyboard of Windows 8

In this article I will show you how to enable and how to change the layout of the virtual On Screen Keyboard (OSK) in Windows 8. On Screen allows the users as an alternative virtual keyboard that can be used through the pointer device like the mouse. It is helpful when the actually physical keyboard does'nt work properly.

The On-Screen Keyboard displays a virtual keyboard on the computer screen that allows people to type data using a pointing device or joystick. We can also adjust or change the layout of the On Screen Keyboard as suitable.

You can adjust the layout, alignment, or number of keys that appear in the On-Screen Keyboard. There are many ways to open the On Screen Keyboard. In this article I will use the faster and easiet way to open the OSK in Windows 8.

Here is the procedure to Enable/Open/Start the On Screen Keyboard (OSK) and select/change it's layout option.

Step 1

Move the pointer on the right-bottom of the screen and select the Search option.



Step 2

In the search box, you can type the name "On Screen Keyboard" and search it. Select the On Screen Keyboard from the left panel of the screen.



Step 3

The On Screen Keyboard appears on the screen.



Step 4

Now, it's time to lean how to change your keyboard layout. To select the layout of the OSK open the Control Panel.

Open the Run Command Prompt by pressing Win+R key. Type "control panel" into the Open textbox, as in:



Step 5

Select the Clock, Language and Region Option from the Control Panel window, as in:



Step 6

Select the Language option and then go ahead.



Step 7

On the right-hand side you will see an options hyperlink, click on it.



Step 8

The default layout of OSK is US. Click on the Add an input method under the Input method tag to change the layout of the On Screen Keyboard.



Step 9

This will show a list of all available layouts for OSK. You can also see the preview of a particular layout of the On Screen Keyboard.