Touch Type Or Hunt and Peck?

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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I'm interested to know the rough percentage of Forums members who touch type versus those who hunt and peck, just out of curiosity. When I was in high school, I spent a semester going to my first class at the typing lab to learn to touch type, to be able to do research papers and later some kind of writing and editing that was my career direction. It was a little bit boring, but once I got into it, I enjoyed the muscle memory skill of it and actually had some fun trying to type really fast. My younger sister later taught herself to touch type out of a printed training manual. Now I'm sure that there are a number of courses available online, on DVD's, and so forth. Though there is probably some uncertainty now, with keyboards on small devices that require hunt-an-peck typing anyway, whether it's worth the effort to learn by touch. Boy, it sure eases the stress and cramp of hunching over pecking one key, by sight, at a time. But many, probably most, will not do otherwise.
So which is it? Touch type or hunt and peck? And why? And are you happy with your choice.

 

aquadoc

Lifer
Feb 15, 2017
2,044
1,522
New Hampshire, USA
Touch type. Required to take typing in HS. Now it is much easier with a full computer keyboard. I type between 75 to 100 wpm once I am warmed up. But grad school did that to me. Before I was not much faster than 30-40 wpm. Just much easier than the hunt and peck method.

 

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
9,894
31,613
34
Burlington WI
I failed my first typing class in high school. Had to take it a second time to graduate. I still think it's weird that people have to look at the keyboard, with single finger uses. Now I'm the fastest typer I know. But these days I'm only ever on the forum on my phone, so I use Swype.

 

grouchydog

Can't Leave
Oct 16, 2013
413
1
Touch-type - I look at the key I want and then I touch it. LOL - that's what I've said for years about my work colleagues.
Me? Touch-type (for real). But then, I'm in IT and I'm at a keyboard all day. Learned on the job, never took typing in HS.
Switching keyboards is a nightmare for me.

 

puffy

Lifer
Dec 24, 2010
2,511
98
North Carolina
It's a bit weird..I type with one finger so I watch the key board. I've done it this way for 20 years,so my fingers pretty much know where the next letter is.If i miss a mistake spell check catches it.My main problem is spelling,so I have a Dictionary next to my PC.

 
Yeh, I took typing in high school and then again in a college orientation class, and it was the only class that I was lucky as hell to pass. Know I use some combination of the two. I hate iphone and ipad keyboards. Apple has some sort of screw-it-up programming that scrambles whatever I try to type in.

 

warren

Lifer
Sep 13, 2013
11,699
16,207
Foothills of the Chugach Range, AK
Touch. Speed Reading and Typing were the two classes in high school which have served me best over the years. Could do a 100wpm at one time. Well, if I didn't worry much about spelling. If I switch to Irish I really slow down as it's not QWERTY setup and a required "fada" is a two key operation.
puffy: I've found the the fastest way to check a spelling I'm unsure of is to simply type it into the search window on my browser. The computer usually finishes the word before I get more than three or four letters typed. I do still keep a Webster's New World 33,000 Word Book handy though.

 

dread

Lifer
Jun 19, 2013
1,617
9
Touch type. They had typing class when I was in HS and that's where I first learned it. I write a lot for work, and of there was school and grad school, so I type fairly quickly. Funny thing, though, is I still automatically put two spaces after a period. Mostly. Lots of back and forth as to whether one should do that now.

 

toobfreak

Lifer
Dec 19, 2016
1,365
7
I started typing as a little kid with one finger. Got real good at it. By the time I was high school age I figured what the heck! Why bother changing now! I'm not a clerk and computers didn't exist back then, but I get by still with that one finger (actually a finger and a half) and average about 25 words a minute, plus I can hit some keys without looking. Not bad.

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,568
27,074
Carmel Valley, CA
Touch typing, learned in HS years, though not at a HS- my family and a couple others joined together to hire a teacher for it. Very grateful.
Also like macros on my mac, such as:
Edmund Blackadder and Baldrick converse:
EB: "First Name?"

B: "I'm not sure."

EB: "Come on, you MUST have a first name."

B: "It might be 'Sod Off'."

EB: "Sod Off??"

B: "Yeah, when I was a young lad playing in the gutter, I used to say to all the other snipes, "Hello, my name's Baldrick". And they'd say, "Yes we know, Sod Off, Baldrick"
- Blackadder and Baldrick filling out an application form.

 

flmason

Lifer
Oct 8, 2012
1,131
2
Cosmic:
I watched a short video on USA Today and it showed how to turn off Apple autocorrect. Go to Settings, General, Keyboarded then turn off Autocorrect
It works well after that. I use the 1 or 2 finger typing method. I have coordination problems and also some of my fingers do not bend so I never took typing class in school. I would have only been laughed at.
Doug

 

aquadoc

Lifer
Feb 15, 2017
2,044
1,522
New Hampshire, USA
Will always use 2 spaces. It is in my DNA. And damn if it doesn't improve readability! My phone keyboard is all SwiftKey and swiping. It is trained. But autocorrect, not so much. I think the biggest problem is I switch languages too often and that jacks the system all to hell.

 
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