Using Slow Keys in Macintosh

• What can Slow Keys do?
• Slow Keys settings:
  • Acceptance delay
  • Use key click sound
• Setting Up Slow Keys

What can Slow Keys do?

The Slow Keys feature is for people who may frequently hit keys accidentally. When Slow Keys is turned on, the computer will ignore quick or repeated key strokes, and will only register key presses of a certain length.

When Slow Keys is turned on, your keyboard repeat is automatically turned off. This means that if you want to show a row of fifty exclamation points, you must press the exclamation point key fifty times.

There are no keyboard shortcuts for turning Slow Keys on or off. You will need to use the mouse to perform these functions.

Slow Keys Settings

Acceptance delay

This feature controls how long you must hold the key down before the keyboard will register a key press. There are five options ranging from long (about three seconds) to short (about half of a second).

Use key click sound

This option causes the computer to make a sound when you press a key, and when a key press is accepted. The sound is the same for both events.

Setting Up Slow Keys

Note that to set up or turn off Slow Keys, you need to use the mouse. There are no keyboard shortcuts.

1. Bring up the Easy Access window. There is a Slow Keys portion of the window.
2. Click the "on" button to turn Slow Keys on.
3. Use the mouse button to set the desired acceptance delay.
4. Use the mouse button to turn on the key click sound, if desired.
5. Hit Command + w to close the Easy Access window. If you opened this window using the keyboard, the focus will switch to the Control Panel. You can continue using Command + w to close windows until all of the desired windows are closed.

Contact us at infotechaccess@server.rehab.uiuic.edu

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