Top printed vs side printed vs blanks.

[Fragil1ty]

Do you find that you type better on one or the other, I find that I type a lot more efficiently on top printed keycaps as opposed to anything else, when I use blanks/side printed, I find that my typing isn't as accurate and I do make a few more mistakes and what not.

I'm a touch-typist, so it shouldn't really matter, but maybe it's all just psychological or whatever? I really do not know.

What about you?

[Oobly]

Top-printed is best for me. I sort-of touch type, but because I move my hands around a fair amount while typing and I visually re-orient myself now and then and top printed legends are best for this.

I have a Ducky G2Pro with front-printed legends and found the front printed legends to have quite an impact on my typing. Strangely enough I find blanks to be less of a hindrance, but I still prefer to have legends printed on top.

[ablooga]

Do you find that you type better on one or the other, I find that I type a lot more efficiently on top printed keycaps as opposed to anything else, when I use blanks/side printed, I find that my typing isn't as accurate and I do make a few more mistakes and what not.

I'm a touch-typist, so it shouldn't really matter, but maybe it's all just psychological or whatever? I really do not know.

What about you?

probably just means you don't know the definition of touch type
100% of the time that im typing. I'm never looking at my keyboard

[luisbg]

There is nothing to lose by seeing the character attached to each key. But clearly something to gain by having that visual feedback.

I switched to blank keycaps for aesthetics, but even though I am a touch typist. Every one in a while I have to do a key combination in emacs that isn't muscle memory and then I need to hunt for it. It definitely slows me down in that situation.

Soon I will finish building my ErgoDox and I am really considering figuring out a way to have printed key caps on it.

[Altis]

For normal typing there's no difference between printed vs blanks for me.

It's only when I'm doing something where my hands aren't static that I can make an error with blanks. For example, if I'm playing a strategy game and use only my left hand but need to quickly hit number "8", it can be a little harder to quickly figure out precisely which key that is since I have to lift and move my hand, making it a more visual key press rather than muscle memory.

[Findecanor]

I need printed keys only when I have to type with one hand.

Please spare me the dirty jokes. There are plenty of reasons why. One is when I get back to the desktop with a cup of coffee in one hand and type my password with the other.

[inanis]

I am a touch typist and almost never have to look at the keyboard. However, I could never use blanks because of the password requirements I work with - and number of passwords and PINs I'm forced to keep. Once we get into special characters, and numbers I get very inefficient with blanks (note: I use a 60%, so no dedicated num pad). Because I can't see what I'm typing, and I'm limited to very few bad attempts it is pretty important to make sure I can confirm the keys I'm hitting. I used engraved caps for a while, so they did look blank for the most part, but when I needed it I could look to get a visual cue. I don't think it would matter if it was top or side printed, as long as I could see it when needed.

[Fragil1ty]

One of the main issues for me is that I went ahead and bought some low profile, stealth keycaps from Leopold, at first I loved them, but they're stealth keycaps or "front printed", so I'm back to my old keycaps for now.


I've also got some keycaps that I could use from my Noppoo, but this would mean I would have to mix and match certain keys, the shift key and the meta key, so it's a bit of a hinderance.


I've encountered a lot of the same issues that you guys do. I do encounter any issues while gaming or anything like that, as I know where everything is, I think it's just a combination of mx reds + front printed keycaps = less WPM or less precise WPM,

[johndavis33]

I like laser engraved PBT keys that ducky makes. If you put them on a backlit board, you can basically switch between being able to see the legends and having them look blank. It's especcially cool looking if you use reactive typing mode. You can barely feel the engraving, too.