Don't let the Caps Lock key RUIN YOUR TYPING

Photo by i_yudai on Flickr

Last week I received an email from James Potter, The LinkedIn Man putting me in touch with one of his connections who was looking for a software solution to a particularly annoying problem:

"As the world’s poorest typist I am desperate to solve the problem of hitting Caps Lock in error and looking at the screen 30 seconds later to find I have typed about thirty WORDS IN UPPER CASE, by mistake."

As this is something that's caught me out before, more often not involving Caps Lock but Num Lock, and finding that I've been moving around a spreadsheet rather than entering numbers into it, it seemed worthwhile writing up a solution offered within Windows itself, namely "ToggleKey".

This feature will cause your computer to beep whenever you press Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock. It makes a slightly different sound activating the lock and deactivating it. Here's how to enable it on Windows XP:

Simply click Start, and then Control Panel. On the window which opens you'll see "Accessibility Options". Double click that, and another smaller window will open - find the box near the bottom marked "Use ToggleKeys" and tick it. Click OK and you're done.

On Windows7, the steps are similar, but inevitably slightly different, and is documented on the Microsoft web site here.