Keyboard Modifiers and Special Keys

When given a printable ASCII character as an argument, the functions Keyboard.write(), Keyboard.press() and Keyboard.release() simulate actuations on the corresponding keys. These functions can also handle ASCII characters that require pressing a key in combination with Shift or, on international keyboards, AltGr. For example:

A typical keyboard, however, has many keys that do not match a printable ASCII character. In order to simulate those keys, the library provides a set of macros that can be passed as arguments to Keyboard.write(), Keyboard.press() and Keyboard.release(). For example, the key combination Shift+F2 can be generated by:

Note that, in order to press multiple keys simultaneously, one has to use Keyboard.press() rather than Keyboard.write(), as the latter just “hits” the keys (it presses and immediately releases them).

The available macros are listed below:

These keys are meant to modify the normal action of another key when the two are pressed in combination.

These are all the keys that do not match a printable ASCII character and are not modifiers.

The library can simulate function keys up to F24.

These are three keys that sit above the navigation cluster.

Some national layouts define extra keys. For example, the Swedish and Danish layouts define KEY_A_RING as 0xB7, which is the key to the right of “P”, labeled “Å” on those layouts and “{”/“[” on the US layout. In order to use those definitions, one has to include the proper Keyboard_*.h file. For example:

For the list of layout-specific key definitions, see the respective Keyboard_*.h file within the library sources.