Dvorak Substitution Converter

Type your text and pick a direction to convert between QWERTY and Dvorak.

How it is calculated

The tool holds two strings that list the same physical keys in the same order: the US QWERTY layout (the three letter rows, the keys [ ] ; ' , . / and their shifted forms) and the matching Dvorak layout. A character at position i of the input layout is replaced with the character at position i of the other. The direction qwerty2dvorak reads your text as QWERTY labels and returns the Dvorak label of that key; dvorak2qwerty does the reverse. Upper and lower case are kept. Everything not in the table (digits, spaces, ! @ #, the - and = keys, accented or non-Latin letters such as ç or ı) is copied unchanged. Empty or blank text gives no result, and an unknown direction falls back to QWERTY to Dvorak. The character count is by characters, so an accented letter counts as one.

Worked example

Input hello world with direction qwerty2dvorak. Key by key: h becomes d, e becomes ., l becomes n, l becomes n, o becomes r. The space stays. w becomes ,, o becomes r, r becomes p, l becomes n, d becomes e. The converted text is d.nnr ,rpne. The tool reports 11 chars, which counts the 10 letters and the space. Running the result back with dvorak2qwerty returns hello world.

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Common mistakes

  • Choosing the wrong direction. The direction describes the layout the input text was written in, so using it backwards gives scrambled text instead of an error.
  • Expecting digits or punctuation like ! @ # to change. The number row is identical on both layouts, so those characters pass through; the same goes for the - and = keys, which this tool leaves as typed.
  • Converting text with accented letters such as ç, ş or ı. Only the US key positions are mapped, so those letters stay as typed while the plain letters around them are converted (Çay becomes Çaf).
  • Treating it as a translation or encryption tool. It only relabels keys, so the text is meaningful only if the keys were pressed on a different layout than intended.
  • Pasting already-correct text and converting it "just in case". Text typed correctly on the layout you use will come out as nonsense after conversion.

About this calculator

The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, patented in 1936 by August Dvorak, rearranges letters so the most frequently used ones in English sit on the home row, aiming to cut finger travel compared to the standard QWERTY layout.

This converter performs a “same physical key, different label” substitution: it maps each character as if the exact same key positions were relabeled with the other layout's letters. That makes it useful for figuring out what you'd type if you pressed the same keys on a Dvorak keyboard, or for decoding text that was accidentally typed with the wrong layout active. It's used by typists switching layouts, programmers debugging layout-mismatch input, and keyboard-layout enthusiasts.

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