Howto:Fit a PC Keyboard Layout to telephony use

Applies To

This information applies to Operator and any other application using a PC keypad for dialing

More Information

If a PC Keyboard is used for telephony (typically the operator) the user has a frontend which is different to the telephone one.

Why? Well, look at this: That is the layout of a phone set:

And that the one of a PC:

Problem Details

Got it? 1234567890 = Phone, 7894561230 = PC. Result: the operator prefer using the phone keyboard that the PC one and that means always toggling from one keyboard to the other. But you can map the keyboard manipulating hard- and software, here is how:

Hardware

The hardware part is very easy: just remove the keycaps with and put them on in another way:

Maybe the angle of the cap is not perfect, but that is not a real problem and depends on the keyboard design. USB Keyboard are very common and there are even special Num-Block available.

And here we are, your new and Telephony compliant keyboard! But of course just the labeling, we must now force the PC and convince him that "7" is "1".

Software

Even the remapping of the keyboard is easy, but you have to manipulate the registry of your PC. The target is to have that kind of registry:

Probably the registry of you PC is blank if you access to that key. And many people don’t like write in registry recourse there is always al little risk to access at the “heart” of the operating system.

So a good, easy and safe way to do that is using KeyTweak http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ a freeware:

With this utility you can simple swap the keys. Just download the software, install it (after the mapping you can de-install it) and run the application. Here is how to swap: press “Full Teach Mode” and press first “7” and then “1” and then select “swap”, then do it vice versa and then with 8 and 9. The results are displayed in the “Pending Changes”. When finished all 6 entries press “Apply”. After rebooting the PC the new Keyboard Layout is active. If you like again the “normal” Keyboard Layout use KeyTweak again and select “Restore All Defaults” or clear manually the registry entry (and boot in both cases the PC again).