Check out Mirabai's Plover cheat sheet as well.
These are the keys and chords for all standard sounds in Plover. For example, to type 'gone', use the stroke TKPWOPB.
Rules for short vowels using single vowel keys and the EU chord:
With three exceptions, each finger is responsible for the two keys above and below, and each thumb is responsible for the two keys to the left and right:
To type a single letter, use the key or chord for that letter on the left side of the keyboard, along with the asterisk. For example, the 'b' sound is stroked PW, and the letter "b" is stroked PW*. To get an uppercase letter, add the P key on the right side of the keyboard. The uppercase "B" is stroked PW*P.
Here is how to fingerspell the remaining English letters:
If the sounds for a word can fit into steno order, then you can type that word with one stroke:
This is equivalent to the string STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ which you should memorize.
Additional ways to try to fit a word into steno order:
Briefs are dictionary entry that violate Plover theory in order to use fewer strokes. These are some of the most commonly used briefs, most of which don't have any phonetic alternative in the dictionary file:
In alphabetical order:
Designing Briefs:
Prefix and suffix strokes prevent Plover from getting confused about where to break words. Learn the ones you need, and gradually build your prefix/suffix knowledge in order to increase your typing speed.
Prefixes:
Some examples:
Suffixes:
Some examples:
Prefix/Suffix alternatives are slow and don't address all cases. Don't rely on them. Learn the appropriate prefix or suffix stroke when you can. But here they are anyway:
If any of these are missing from your dictionary file, add an entry for them:
Useful strokes:
Keyboard fingering is different when typing numbers:
These are the strokes to type each of the ten digits:
Notice that the '0' is right in the middle, in order to match up with the O key. With that exception, also notice that the list of numbers is in steno order: STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ.
To type a two digit number, stroke two single digit numbers together:
In their unmodified form, two digit numbers always match the steno order of the keys used to stroke them. To invert that order, add the EU chord:
To have the second digit be the same as the first, use the single digit that you want, but add the D key to the stroke:
When you stroke one number after another, Plover does not add a space between them. It's possible to type a long number by stroking all the parts of that number in turn:
Sequences of digits that are all in steno order may be typed all at once. For example, '25689' may be stroked as #TAFLT. However, when stroking more than two digits this way, the D, EU, and other modifiers don't work.
There are typically many different ways to stroke a long number. For example, '1068' may also be stroked as #S/#O/#F/#L, or #SOFL. It's up to you.
If you want to add a double zero to a single digit number, you could use the #OD stroke after the number, for example stroking '100' as #S/#OD, or you could include the Z key in your stroke.
To prefix a single digit number with the '$' character and add a double zero after it, add the DZ chord to the number stroke:
To express a one or two digit number as clock time, add either K or BG to the stroke: