Dvorak Shortcuts don't work properly

[George K Tsigounis]

Recently learning the Dvorak keyboard was hampered by having to learn new
locations for shortcut keys ­ until I discovered Word was smart enough to
detect the Dvorak layout and REMAP all the shortcut keys to their old
locations. So, for examle, Cmd-S was now Cmd-O (since O on the Dvorak is
where S is on the Qwerty layout).

This was sortof OK as I certainly rely on location with a lot of shortcuts
(like cut, copy, paste), but rely on first letter mnemonics for others (such
as Save, New or Open). And of course, no other app tried to offer this
feature either ....

Then I discovered the Mac had a second Dvorak mode ­ Dvorak with Qwerty Cmd
keys.
For regular typing the keyboard switches to the Dvorak layout, but when the
Cmd key is held down it switches back to Qwerty layout so all the old
shortcut keys work!

This works great in ALL apps I have tried ­ even Excel and Powerpoint ‹ all
except Word, which now gets confused by this mode. Word is fine in Dvorak
mode ­ it remaps the shortcut keys as promised, but in Dvorak with Qwerty
Cmd it gets confused.
Based on the Qwerty layout I get the following results:
* Cmd-C works fine
* Cmd-X does not ­ I have to press Cmd-B (where X is on the Dvorak keyboard
(it executes Cmd ­ Q instead!)
* Cmd-V works
* Cmd-S does not (have to press Cmd-; where S is on the Dvorak)
* Cmd-Z works (thankfully)

I have read on one forum that if you pause after pressing the Cmd key
(before completing the shortcut key press) then it works. In my experience
this is still only a solution sometimes ­ no matter how long I press
sometimes I still get the wrong shortcut. Plus, having to wait for a
shortcut defeats the purpose of having it in the first place!
(See http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/2005/01/dvorak/index.php)

While I appreciate the efforts of the Word developers, they appear to have
been misplaced given the system-wide effectiveness of the two Dvorak
keyboard mappings provided in OS X ­ if the ability to stop Word remapping
keys automatically could be added that would be a great help (and save
individual users having to try to manually correct every single shortcut
which I don¹t think is feasible).

George

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Well, that sounds like a nightmare. Is this Word X or Word 2004?

 

[GKT]

Word 2004, but according to the link to the macworld article in my
earlier post, Word X has the same problem, er feature.

George

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Right. To make sure it's logged by MacBU, I suggest you use Help | Send
Feedback and just send them your entire post, being sure to state specific
versions. We'll complain as well.

You are of course aware that you can set your own keyboard shortcuts in Word
to rationalize it all out? A huge investment of time and trouble that you
shouldn't have to undertake, certainly, but it is a workaround.

 

[GKT]

Thanks Daiya. I've submitted feedback as suggested.

I was aware of setting my own keyboard shortcuts, and alluded to it
when I said users could "correct every single shortcut" but as you say,
that's a huge investment of effort for a workaround.

George