Touch Cover typing

Touch Cover is more than a protective cover for your Surface. It’s also a keyboard. Touch Cover is active whenever it's attached and not folded back.

When you’re typing on Touch Cover, you can rest your hands on the Touch Cover keys. Touch Cover only detects key presses when you strike a key.

Hands resting in the home position on Touch Cover

By default, a sound plays when you strike a key on the Touch Cover. This way you know when your touch is recognized as a key press. Type on Touch Cover just as you would type on any other keyboard.

Touch Cover has a standard QWERTY keyboard, shortcut keys for common tasks and a trackpad.

Media keys: Mute, volume down, volume up, and play/pause

Windows charm keys:

Search: Find apps, settings, and files.

Share: Share things like links and photos.

Devices: Send files to a printer, stream movies to a TV.

Settings: Change Surface settings.

For info about the charms, see Charms: Search, share, start, devices, and settings.

Windows key: Go to the Start screen. Or if you're already on Start, this key takes you to the last app you were in.

Trackpad:

Drag your finger on the trackpad to move the on-screen pointer and use other gestures. For more info about this, see Trackpad: The built-in mouse.

To turn off the sound that plays when you type:

1. Open the Settings charm, tap or click Change PC settings.
2. Tap or click General.
3. Scroll to Touch Keyboard. Find Play key sounds as I type and move the slider to Off.

When you want to type using the on-screen keyboard, fold back Touch Cover like a magazine cover or remove it altogether. Tap in a text field or other area where you can type and the on-screen keyboard appears. For more info, see How to use the on-screen keyboard.

Yes. You can use the trackpad as you would use a mouse, or connect a USB or Bluetooth® mouse. For info on using a USB mouse, see Connect a mouse.

If you want a more traditional keyboard experience, you have a couple of options:

• Type Cover. Slightly thicker than the Touch Cover, Type Cover has traditional keys that move when you type. For more info, see Type Cover.
• Bluetooth or USB keyboard. Connect a Bluetooth or USB keyboard to Surface. For more info, see Connect a USB keyboard or Add a Bluetooth keyboard.