Punctuation & Symbols Practice

How this practice works

Many typing mistakes happen at punctuation. Quotation marks, brackets, colons, and the at sign are all rare compared with letters, so your fingers have had less practice with them. This page gives you full lines of text that are packed with those characters, such as "Ready?" she asked. "Almost," he said, "just one more line." and Price: $14.50 (was $20.00) - that's 27.5% off!

Pick No timer to type a set of lines at your own pace, or 1 min or 3 min for a countdown. You see WPM and accuracy at the end.

What you will practice

• Commas, periods, question marks, exclamation marks, and ellipses.
• Apostrophes in words like don't and it's.
• Quotation marks, parentheses, colons, and semicolons.
• Symbols such as $, %, #, @, /, and ~ in prices, emails, and paths.

Tips for symbols

• Learn where each symbol lives by feel, not by looking.
• Use the Shift key on the opposite side from the symbol you want.
• Slow down for symbols, then speed up through the letters between them.
• If one mark keeps tripping you up, repeat the line it appears in a few times.

Expect a lower WPM than on plain words. Every symbol is an extra reach, and many need Shift, so a slower pace is normal. Accuracy matters more here, because a misplaced bracket or quotation mark can change the meaning of a sentence or break a line of code.

If you are new to the idea, start with the punctuation lesson. For everyday sentences with lighter punctuation, use sentence practice. Programmers who want brackets and operators can go on to code typing practice.

Working through trouble spots

Run the page once with no timer and make a note of which marks cause the most corrections. Quotation marks and brackets are common culprits, because they come in pairs and need Shift. Then repeat the run, this time slowing down on those marks only. After a few rounds you should notice your fingers finding them without searching. Mixing this page with sentence practice gives you both the symbols and the everyday rhythm of normal writing, which is where punctuation usually appears.

Keyboard layouts differ a little between countries, and some symbols may sit in different places on your keyboard. This page expects a standard US English layout. If a symbol seems to be missing or in the wrong spot, check your keyboard language setting. Once the layout matches, the practice works the same way for everyone.

Your result is only for your own comparison between runs.

Frequently asked questions