BYTETOOLS

Keyboard Layout Converter

Recover text typed with the wrong keyboard layout active. Remaps between QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and ЙЦУКЕН by key position.

Converted text

Paste text above and pick the two layouts. Every character is looked up by its key position, so a whole paragraph typed with the wrong layout active comes back character for character.

Layouts are modelled as the 47 character keys of an ANSI keyboard: 13 in the number row, 13 in the top letter row, 11 on the home row and 10 on the bottom row, in both unshifted and shifted states. ISO keyboards have one extra key next to the left shift, which is not represented.

What is the Keyboard Layout Converter?

Everyone has done it: you start typing before noticing the input language is still set to the other layout, and a paragraph of careful writing comes out as gibberish.

  • Six layouts: QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and ЙЦУКЕН
  • Maps by physical key position, including every shifted character
  • Works in both directions, with a one-click Swap layouts button
  • Reports how many characters were remapped and how many were not on the layout
  • Feed the output straight back in as input to chain conversions
  • Copy or download the result; conversion never leaves your browser

How to use the Keyboard Layout Converter

  1. 1

    Paste the gibberish text into the input box.

  2. 2

    Set “Text was typed on” to the layout that was active by mistake.

  3. 3

    Set “Keys actually belong to” to the layout you meant to use.

  4. 4

    Read the converted text, or press “Swap layouts” if you picked them the wrong way round.

  5. 5

    Copy or download the recovered text.

About the Keyboard Layout Converter

Everyone has done it: you start typing before noticing the input language is still set to the other layout, and a paragraph of careful writing comes out as gibberish. Because each layout prints a different character from the same physical key, the original text is perfectly recoverable — you just need to know which key was actually pressed.

This converter models each layout as the 47 character keys of an ANSI keyboard in physical order: 13 in the number row, 13 in the top letter row, 11 on the home row and 10 on the bottom row, in both unshifted and shifted states. It finds each character's position in the source layout and reads the character the target layout prints from that same position, so the recovery is exact and works in either direction.

Six layouts are included: QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and Russian ЙЦУКЕН. Everything runs in your browser, so nothing you paste is uploaded — handy when the mistyped text happens to be a password reminder or a private message.

Frequently asked questions

How do I fix text typed in the wrong keyboard layout?

Paste it here, set the layout that was active when you typed as the source and the layout you meant to use as the target. Each character is looked up by its key position, so the original text comes back exactly.

Can it convert Russian text typed on a QWERTY keyboard?

Yes. Set the source to QWERTY and the target to ЙЦУКЕН, or the other way round for Cyrillic typed on an English layout. The number row, punctuation and shifted characters are all mapped.

Why were some characters left unchanged?

Because they are not on the source layout's 47 base keys. Accented letters produced with a dead key or an AltGr combination, and characters pasted from elsewhere, have no key position to look up, so they are passed through untouched and counted separately.

Does this work with ISO keyboards?

Mostly. The model uses the 47 keys of an ANSI keyboard, so the extra key ISO keyboards place next to the left shift is not represented. Everything else, including the AZERTY and QWERTZ number rows, converts normally.

Is the text I paste uploaded anywhere?

No. The remapping is a pure lookup running in your browser, so nothing is sent to a server and the tool works offline.

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