How to Enable and Use the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11

If you have a Windows PC with a touchscreen, you can use the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11. With Windows 11, Microsoft brought several improvements to the Touch Keyboard, including an emoji panel, voice typing capabilities, themes, and much more.

On top of that, the Touch keyboard in Windows 11 offers many customization options, allowing you to change the keyboard size, theme, background and key text size. In this post, we’ll walk you through how to enable, use, and customize the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11. So let’s get started.

How to Enable Touch Keyboard in Windows 11

Enabling the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11 is quite simple. Here’s how to do it.

Stage 1: Right click on the Taskbar and select Taskbar settings.

Step 2: In the Settings window that appears, expand the Taskbar corner icons and turn on the switch next to the Touch keyboard.

Once you have completed the steps mentioned above, a small keyboard icon will appear in the Taskbar. You can click on it to access the Touch Keyboard easily.

How to Use the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11

After turning on the Touch Keyboard, you can use your mouse cursor or touch input to start typing. Alternatively, you can use the gear icon to switch to handwriting mode and use your pen or mouse to write.

Similarly, clicking the microphone icon allows you to use the text-to-speech functionality.

Besides various input methods, clicking the Recent icon gives you access to emojis, GIFs, symbols and clipboard history.

After typing with the Touch Keyboard, click the cross or press any key on your physical keyboard to turn it off.

Additionally, you can switch between different languages ​​on the Touch Keyboard. For this you need to add new languages ​​to your PC first.

Stage 1: Open the Settings app and use the left pane to switch to the Time & Language tab. Then go to Language and region.

Step 2: Next, click the Add language button.

Stage 3: In the next window, browse through the available languages ​​or use the search tool at the top to find your preferred language. After selecting the new language, press Next.

Step 4: Then click Install.

Step 5: After installing your preferred keyboard language, open the Touch Keyboard and click the language icon to switch languages.

How to Customize the Touch Keyboard in Windows 11

Windows 11 also offers several customization options that you can use to personalize your Touch Keyboard experience.

Change Keyboard Layout

Stage 1: Open the Touch Keyboard and click the gear icon on the left.

Step 2: Go to the keyboard layout and choose one of the available layouts.

Change Keyboard Size

Stage 1: Press Windows key + I to open the Settings app. Go to the Personalization tab and select Touch keyboard.

Step 2: Use the slider next to Keyboard size to increase or decrease the keyboard size.

You can click the Open keyboard button to preview the keyboard.

Change Keyboard Themes

Stage 1: Open the start menu, type Touch Keyboard settingsand press Enter.

Step 2: Expand the Keyboard theme section and scroll through the list to select a theme.

If you can’t find the theme you want from the presets, you can also create a custom theme here. To do this, select the Custom theme option and then click the Edit button.

You can change each element of the Touch Keyboard. You can change both the color and transparency of the window, keys, and text on the keys.

You can also customize your keyboard by setting a custom image. To do this, go to the Window tab and select Picture under ‘Customize your background’. Then click ‘Choose your image’ to upload it from your computer.

These changes will be reflected below the Theme preview at the top as you make these changes.

Change Key Text Size and Background

Under Keyboard theme, you can use the drop-down menu next to the Key text size to change it. Similarly, you can also toggle the key to enable or disable the Key background.

Virtual Keyboard in Windows

As we’ve just seen, there are many things you can do with your Touch keyboard in Windows 11. While touchscreen laptops can make the most of it, the virtual keyboard can be more than useful when your physical keyboard stops working on your computer.