by Joanna Norman
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For Mother’s day my kids gave me a nifty silicone keyboard cover for my MacBook Air. Would I recommend this to transcriptionists? Yes and no. Please read on.
Pros
I can see at a glance all the keyboard shortcuts available on my laptop. Some are ones I already used all the time such as “command c” for copy and “command v” for paste. It has also helped me learn many keyboard shortcuts that were new to me. This can really speed up your editing and formatting. So if you aren’t very familiar with keyboard shortcuts, this is a great tool to learn them. I found it easier to learn keyboard shortcuts from this cover than from a list. I also like that it keeps my keyboard clean and is washable if it were to get dirty.
So yes, I recommend this silicone keyboard cover as a very helpful tool for transcriptionists who want to learn keyboard shortcuts.
Cons
Unfortunately, the keyboard cover significantly slows down my typing. If I am checking email or typing up invoices, I don’t notice it. But when I am working away on a transcript, I don’t use it. I found that with the keyboard cover on my laptop, I have to press the keys slightly harder and my fingers didn’t slide over them as quickly, so it noticeably slowed down my typing and caused hand fatigue.
Fortunately, it is easy to take on and off, so I just remove the keyboard cover when I’m transcribing and put it back on when I’m using my laptop for other things. I assume that eventually I will have learned all the shortcuts and probably won’t use it much at all.
I don’t recommend that you use this cover when you are actively typing a transcript because it may slow you down and could lead to hand fatigue.
