Average Typing Speed

The average typing speed of words per minute shows how quickly you enter text from the keyboard. What typing speed is considered good typing and what is slow typing?

Good typing speeds are relative to job descriptions. For instance, information entry positions generally need 60-80 words per minute. Medical transcriptionists, paralegals and executive secretaries must be able to type 70-100 wpm.

What Depends Average Typing Speed Per Minute

What’s thought about an average typing speed largely depends upon the task you’re doing. Forty words per minute works fine for emailing good friends, up of 80 wpm may be required for some jobs.

Jobs in which you generally spend very little time at the computer may not even have typing speed requirements. For example, sales people don’t require to type particularly quick. Service people like waiters, cosmetologists and security officers might not need to type at all. Nevertheless, being able to type well can help you get more done, even if it’s just for yourself.

Speed and accuracy can be enhanced gradually, however if you’re requesting a job that specifies a certain typing speed, be prepared to satisfy that requirement on your first day. In today’s hectic business environment employers expect new hires to hit the ground running.

The Fastest Typing Speeds Ever

Average Typing Speed Per Minute

The fastest taped typists in history have speeds of over 200 wpm. In 1946, Stella Pajunas, from Chicago, hit 216 wpm on an IBM electric typewriter. Her record is still unbroken.

Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon, came close in 2005 at 212 wpm. However some would argue apples and oranges because she utilize a customized keyboard.

The Guinness Book of Records lists “fastest typists” in various categories. There’s the fastest typist using his nose (103 characters in 46.30 seconds) and the fastest typing time on a mobile phone (264 characters in 56.57 seconds).

Read also: How to fix keyboard typing numbers instead of letters on laptop

Normal Typing Words Per Minute

There is a slight difference in average typing speeds in between males and women. Males balance approximately 44 words per minute, while women average 37 words per minute. Handwriting is approximated to reach slightly more than 30 words per minute, which reveals that even typical typing is faster than handwriting.

Errors are inescapable. The average typist makes about eight mistakes per 100 words. While autocorrect can fix some mistakes, it can also create more problems.

If very precise typing is very important in your job, you may wish to consider turning off autocorrect. You can likewise customize it. Type “customize autocorrect” in your computer’s “Help” search bar for instructions.

WPM typing chart

In this table I decided to illustrate how good (or not so good) your typing is.

Your typing speedComments
less than 15 wpmbad (may be the first time you have encountered this keyboard layout)
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 wpmpoor (it’s still pretty slow)
22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 wpmnot bad (You’re still typing slowly, but you’re making progress)
28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 wpmbelow average (it’s quite a good result, although it’s below average)
34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 wpmaverage (You have an average print speed. You can probably do better than that)
40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 wpmgood (you type better than most people. It’s not fast yet, though…)
46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 wpmnice (you have come very close to fast printing. There’s not much left…)
52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57 wpmvery good (well, you’re typing fast, great result)
58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64 wpmexcellent (it’s a professional print speed)
65+ wpmwow (super speed printing)

How to Improve Your Typing Skills

Improving typing skills requires dealing with both speed and accuracy. Programs are readily available online to assist. Many are free and integrate online competitions with leaderboards to inspire much better results.

Tips for improving typing typically focus on touch typing. Touch typing uses muscle memory to discover keys rapidly instead of glances down at the keyboard. This is same approach pianists use so they can read music and play at the very same time.

Read also: How to unlock a Dell keyboard

Voice to Text Technology for “Lazy” People

Developing accurate, easy to use voice to text software application is a real difficulty for software application engineers. For beginners, people speak much faster than they read or type. The typical English speaker in the U.S. utters about 150 words per minute. Improvements in this field languished for a while but advances are once again being made.

Well created voice acknowledgment software can enhance efficiency significantly. You can determine a letter about 3 times faster than typing one. Nevertheless, even the best programs require time to adjust to you. The software application has to adjust to your voice and, learn the words and phrases you utilize most often.

These programs work better the more you use them. Once they discover your most regularly used words and phrases, they’ll begin anticipating and auto-filling text the method your smartphone does. Costs for voice to text software range from a number of hundred dollars to numerous thousand. In general, the more you spend, the better the technology.

Where can you learn how to type fast and well?

Conclusion

You can check your average typing speed online (here or here). In case it is rather low, I recommend you to practice on a keyboard simulator to improve your wpm typing speed, which will be very useful in your work and correspondence.

typing speeds