Quick Reference on the Number of Keys on a Standard Keyboard Layout
June 09, 2020

Introduction

This post is a quick summary of the number of keys found on standard keyboards. I wanted to order some switches for one of my keyboards and a quick Google search didn't reveal much results and as such, for now and for future reference, I'm creating this blog post.

There are plenty of keyboard layouts currently on the market with different sizes. In this post, we quickly glance over the layout and the number of keys available on the standard US ANSI layouts: 104 key full size, 87 key tenkeyless, the rare 84 keys keyboard, and the 61 key compact layouts.

Keyboard Layouts Info

To create the below graphics, I used the amazing Keyboard-Layout-Editor.com online tool. Please note that the below naming conventions and color annotations are not standardized. I'm just following the commonly used terms on popular mechanical keyboards related content creators like Taeha Types, Mech Merlin, and Tae Keyboards.

 

ANSI Layout Keyboard with Colored Key Clusters

ANSI Layout Keyboard with Colored Key Clusters

 

ANSI Keyboard Layout Diagram with Common Form Factors

ANSI Keyboard Layout Diagram with Common Form Factors

 

ANSI 75 Percent Keyboard Layout

ANSI 75 Percent Keyboard Layout

 

Number of Keys

Full size (100%): 104 keys

Tenkeyless TKL (80%): 87 keys

Seventy five percent or Compact TKL (75%): 84 keys

Exploded seventy five percent: 82 keys (Excluding the rotary knob key)

Compact sixty percent (60%): 61 keys
 

Function keys (purple): 12

Modifiers (orange): 17

Numbers row (dark blue): 12

Alphas (light blue): 33

Alphas and numbers row (both blues): 45

Navigation cluster (light green): 10

Full navigation cluster (both greens): 13

Numpad (gray): 17

 

More Info

For more info, please check this this Wikipedia article about keyboard layouts and this post about keyboards by Philip Trauring on their personal blog page.


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Written by
Mario Awad

Founder of SOFTKUBE, lead developer, and getting things done addict. Passionate about open source, user interface design, business development, and the tech world.

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SOFTKUBE

A small team of experts developing simple, usable, and high-quality web solutions. We blog about business, entrepreneurship, web development, and technology.

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