Your wireless keyboard is not working
as the batteries are unexpectedly
empty. Still, it’s urgent: you quickly
need a different method to enter text
to finish an important document.
While shutting down the computer
is easiest with a mouse, it becomes
considerably slower when entering text
using a mouse. For emergency cases,
Windows offers a seldom-used aid to
carry out all processes using the mouse:
the desktop keyboard.
To activate it, you will have to activate
the tablet PC input field. For that, right
click a free area of the taskbar and select
the command ‘Toolbar | Tablet PC input
panel’. You will first see the additional
writing pad symbol to the right in the
taskbar, which superimposes the window
for entering text or desktop keyboard
after a click on it. Both modes can be
switched over using the icons to the
left in the title bar of this window. The
input aid remains in the foreground and
enables cursive writing using the mouse.
The clicks are directly implemented as
keystrokes in other open windows and
applications. By closing the window, you
can only minimize it wherein it is shifted
to the left margin of the screen where you
can always access it easily. Moreover, you
will have to ‘Display extended keyboard’
via ‘Tools’ to get access to the scrolling
control elements. You can close the tool
completely only via the ‘Tools | End’ entry.
Note: The desktop keyboard is also
useful for safe entry of passwords and
the rejection of monitoring by keylogging
tools, since no keyboard entries pass
through a hardware interface.
