Typing with arthritis
What actually helps, in the order it helps.
- Free settings first
- Then the kit
- Then the typing itself
In short
- Sticky Keys stops you holding two keys apart. Free, on both Mac and Windows.
- Slow the key repeat down so a long press stops turning into fifteen letters.
- Lighter keyboards make each press cost less. They do not make there be fewer.
- Dictation is the only one that removes presses. That is why it is last here.
Most advice about typing with sore hands is about making typing more comfortable. That is worth doing and it has a ceiling, because the number of key presses in your day does not move. This is the same list, sorted by how much each thing actually takes away.
1. Turn on Sticky Keys
Holding Shift while stretching for a bracket is one of the worst things a sore hand gets asked to do. Sticky Keys lets you press the modifier, let go, then press the letter. Same result, one finger at a time.
It is in Accessibility settings on both Mac and Windows, it takes about thirty seconds, and you can turn it off again if you hate it. Capitals, question marks, brackets and every shortcut you use get easier at once.
2. Slow down the key repeat
If your fingers rest on a key a moment longer than they used to, the computer reads that as you asking for the letter fifteen times. Then you delete fourteen of them, which is more typing.
Both systems let you change how long a key waits before repeating, and how fast. Push the delay up and the speed down. It is a small setting that quietly stops a whole category of correction.
3. Make each press cost less
Keyboards differ a lot in how hard you have to push and how far the key travels. Low-profile boards, including most laptop keyboards, ask for less of both. Tall mechanical keyboards with stiff switches ask for more.
Split and tented keyboards help some people a great deal and suit others badly, so try before you spend if you can. The honest summary: better kit changes how a key press feels, not how many of them your day contains.
4. Type the same thing once
Everybody has phrases they retype all day — an address, a standard reply, a long product name. macOS has text replacement built in, so you can type a few letters and get the whole phrase. On Windows it is per app rather than system-wide, and Word’s AutoCorrect is the usual way in.
It only covers what repeats, which is a smaller share than people expect. Worth ten minutes, not worth an afternoon.
5. Stop typing the long stuff
Everything above makes typing cheaper. Dictation is the only item on the list that makes there be less of it.
A day of email, notes and messages is thousands of key presses. Said out loud, it is one key held down and a few hundred presses left over for the edits you would rather do by hand. Most people type around 40 words a minute and talk at about 150, so it is faster too, but speed is not why you are here.
The catch is that most dictation gives you a wall of unpunctuated words with a name spelled wrong in it, and fixing that is worse for sore hands than typing was. So the thing to check, whatever you end up using, is how much cleanup it leaves behind.
Free, ten minutes
Sticky Keys and the key repeat settings. Do these today whatever else you decide.
Costs money, helps some
A lighter keyboard, a different mouse. Real, and the same number of presses.
Removes the typing
Dictation, if it lands finished. The only change that moves the count.
What JotMic does about the cleanup
Hold one key, say the sentence, let go. Punctuation and capitals come from the way you talked, ums and false starts are dropped, and every other word is left exactly as you said it. Names you teach it once stay spelled the way you want.
It types wherever your cursor already is, so there is no separate window and nothing to paste. And it works with the wifi off if what you are writing should not leave your machine. Dictation software for hand arthritis is the longer version of this, written for hands rather than for settings.
60 minutes free, no card. Enough to write a week of email and see what your hands make of it.
60 minutes free · no card
One thing this page is not
None of this is medical advice, and a hand therapist will have better ideas about your hands than any software company will. Everything above is about the computer: what it asks your fingers to do, and how much of that you can hand to your voice instead.
Read next
Hand arthritis
The full version, written for the joints rather than the settings.
Hand pain
The short version, whatever is causing it.
Voice commands
Driving menus and apps by voice on a Mac, for the mouse half of the day.
Questions
What is the easiest keyboard to type on with arthritis?
The one that needs the least force and the least travel. Low-profile keyboards, including the one built into most laptops, take less push per key than a tall mechanical one. Beyond that it is personal: split and tented keyboards help some people a lot and suit others badly, so if you can try before buying, do.
How do I stop holding down Shift, Ctrl and Command?
Turn on Sticky Keys. It is in Accessibility settings on both Mac and Windows, and it lets you press the modifier and the letter one after the other instead of together. Holding two keys apart is one of the more awkward things a sore hand is asked to do, and this removes it entirely.
My key presses keep repeating. Can I fix that?
Yes. Both Mac and Windows let you change how long a key has to be held before it starts repeating, and how fast it repeats. Slowing both down stops a slow press turning into fifteen of the same letter.
Is voice typing better than a special keyboard?
They do different things. A better keyboard makes each key press cost less. Dictation removes most of the key presses. If your day is mostly writing, the second one is a much bigger change, and the two work fine together.
Is the dictation built into my computer good enough?
For a sentence here and there, yes, and it is free and already installed. It runs out on longer writing: it stops after a pause, leaves most of the punctuation to you, and never learns the names you use. All of that gets fixed at the keyboard afterwards, which is the part you were trying to avoid.
Do I have to say the punctuation out loud when I dictate?
Not with JotMic. Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talk. Some other tools do want you to say them, which is worth checking before you settle on one.
Can I still type sometimes?
Of course, and most people do. Dictation takes over the long writing — email, notes, documents — and the keyboard keeps the short edits. The aim is fewer key presses, not none.
Does any of this need a diagnosis?
No. Every setting on this page is free and reversible, and none of it needs anybody’s permission. What it is not is medical advice — a hand therapist will have better ideas about your hands than a software company will.
What does JotMic cost to try?
60 minutes of dictation, free, no card. Enough to write a week of email and see whether your hands notice.
60 minutes free on both engines, no card. Set up in about two minutes.
60 minutes free · no card