Test every key on a French AZERTY keyboard — the ISO shape, with A/Q swapped, M on the home row and a tall Enter.
Simply press any key on your keyboard to test it — if it works it will turn green
0Keys Pressed0Total Keys0%Tested
AZERTY on the ISO shape — A/Q and Z/W swap, M moves to the home row, and the number row types punctuation unshifted. Like QWERTZ it has a tall Enter and the extra key beside a short left Shift. Standard key positions, with no vendor-specific extras.
Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, Alt+Tab and the Windows or Command key are reserved by the browser and the operating system. No web page receives them, so they cannot be tested here or anywhere else in a browser.
Keys shown greyed out with a dashed outline cannot be tested: your keyboard handles them internally and the browser never receives a key event for them. They are excluded from the totals, so 100% stays reachable.
At a glance
Key counts and layout facts
Detail
Value
Common name
AZERTY, French layout
Physical shape
ISO
Key count (full size)
105 keys
Key count (TKL)
88 keys
Enter key
Tall, two rows, notched
Movement cluster
ZQSD rather than WASD
Number row
Punctuation unshifted, digits with Shift
Used in
France, Belgium
An AZERTY keyboard in numbers
Every figure describes the French ISO board this page opens on.
105
Testable keysOne more than ANSI, from the shortened left Shift.
4
Letters that moveA, Z, Q and W all change position against a US layout.
1
Letter on the home rowM moves beside L, where US layouts put the semicolon.
10
Number keys needing ShiftThe number row types punctuation unshifted.
How to test an AZERTY keyboard
Four letters move and the number row inverts.
1
Confirm the board shape matches
An AZERTY board is ISO: a tall two-row Enter, a short left Shift and an extra key beside it. If your board has a wide flat Enter, switch the Key Layout selector to QWERTY — you have an ANSI board with French legends.
2
Press the moved letters first
A and Q swap, Z and W swap, and M moves to the home row beside L. The on-screen caps show the French legends while the codes stay at their US physical positions, so the cap marked A sits where a US board puts Q.
3
Work the rest, including Alt Gr
Function row, number row, letter rows, bottom row, navigation, number pad. The number row types punctuation unshifted, so digits need Shift — that affects what is typed, not what this test sees.
What to check on an AZERTY board
Five checks specific to the French layout.
A, Z, Q, W and M move
Key codes describe physical positions on a US board, so the cap printed A reports KeyQ. The legends move and the codes stay, which is exactly what should happen.
The extra ISO key
IntlBackslash beside the shortened left Shift exists only on ISO boards, and is the 105th key.
The tall Enter and its stabiliser
Press the two-row Enter at both halves. One half failing points at a stabiliser, not a switch.
Alt Gr for accented characters
Alt Gr sends AltRight. French typists use it constantly for the at sign, hash and curly brackets, so test it deliberately.
The number row under Shift
AZERTY types punctuation unshifted, so digits need Shift held. Test both Shift keys against the number row.
Everything about this layout
The shape, the trade-offs and what to watch for when testing it.
01
What moves on an AZERTY board
Four changes account for most of the difference. The A and Q keys swap positions, so the home row begins QSDF rather than ASDF. The Z and W keys swap, putting Z at the top left where a US board has Q. And M moves from the bottom row up to the home row, taking the position a US board uses for semicolon.
The bottom row therefore ends WXCVBN plus comma and full stop, and the punctuation that a US board puts on the bottom row shifts one position along.
The number row is the change that surprises people most: pressing the key marked 1 produces an ampersand, and you must hold Shift to get the digit. The accented characters é, è, ç and à live unshifted on that row, which is why French typists reach for Shift far more often than English ones.
02
Gaming on AZERTY
The WASD movement cluster becomes ZQSD on an AZERTY board, because the keys at those physical positions carry different letters. Most games handle this by binding physical positions rather than characters, which is exactly the behaviour this test demonstrates.
Press the key marked Z at the top left of your letters and the on-screen board lights up the position a US layout calls KeyW. That is correct: the browser reports the position, and the AZERTY legends are painted onto those positions.
If a game asks you to press W and nothing happens, but pressing the key marked Z works, the game is binding by position and everything is functioning as intended.
03
The ISO shape underneath
French boards are ISO, which changes the physical layout as well as the legends. The Enter key spans two rows and is notched at its bottom left; the backslash-position key moves down beside it and on a French board is labelled with the asterisk and micro sign.
The left Shift is shortened to make room for an extra key beside it, labelled with the greater-than and less-than symbols and reported by browsers as IntlBackslash. That key does not exist on US ANSI boards at all, and it is why a full-size French board has 105 keys rather than 104.
Alt Gr on the right produces the third characters printed on the caps: the at sign, the euro sign, the hash, and the various brackets that French typists need constantly for code.
04
Testing a French keyboard
Go row by row, and expect 105 keys on a full-size board. Start at the top left with the square key, run along the number row through the accented characters, then the three letter rows, remembering that M now sits at the end of the home row rather than on the bottom row.
The extra key beside the left Shift is the one most often missed. Press it deliberately and confirm it lights up.
If you are testing a French laptop, change the Form Factor dropdown as well as leaving AZERTY selected. The ISO shape and the AZERTY legends apply together to every form factor the site draws.
AZERTY against the other character layouts
Character layout and physical shape are two separate choices.
Testable key count and shape by character layout
Character layout
Testable keys
Enter shape
Left Shift
Extra ISO key
QWERTY (US, ANSI)
104
Wide, one row
Full length
No
AZERTY (French, ISO)
105
Tall, two rows
Shortened
Yes
QWERTZ (German, ISO)
105
Tall, two rows
Shortened
Yes
AZERTY and QWERTZ share an identical physical shape. Only the printed legends differ.
Fixing an AZERTY keyboard
Three faults specific to French layouts.
1The letters come out as QWERTY
On the test:The correct cap lights on screen, but US letters are typed.
Set your system input language to French.
Confirm here that the correct caps light, which proves the hardware is correct.
Remove unused input languages, which an accidental shortcut can switch between.
Choose French (AZERTY) rather than a Belgian or Canadian variant, which remap several keys.
2Digits need Shift held down
On the test:The number row types punctuation on a plain press.
Expect this. A standard French AZERTY layout types punctuation unshifted and digits with Shift.
Press Caps Lock, which on French layouts shifts the number row on many systems.
Consider the French (variant) layout if you type digits constantly, which inverts the row.
3Alt Gr does nothing
On the test:The Alt Gr cap stays blank.
Confirm Alt Gr lights here as AltRight. It is a standard key with a standard code.
Try Ctrl plus Alt as a substitute, which most systems treat as equivalent.
Check no software has claimed AltRight globally, which some remapping tools do.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I have to press Shift to type numbers?
That is standard AZERTY behaviour. The number row carries punctuation and accented characters unshifted — ampersand, é, quote, apostrophe and so on — with the digits available on Shift. It is one of the layout's most distinctive traits.
Where is the M key on an AZERTY keyboard?
At the end of the home row, immediately to the right of L, in the position a US board uses for the semicolon. It is not on the bottom row, which ends with N followed by comma and full stop.
Why does WASD not work in my game?
On AZERTY those physical positions carry the letters Z, Q, S and D. Games that bind by physical position will work correctly with ZQSD under your fingers. Games that bind by character may need remapping in their own settings.
How many keys does a French keyboard have?
105 on a full-size board, because French boards are ISO and carry an extra key beside a shortened left Shift. That is one more than a US ANSI board's 104.
Is Belgian AZERTY the same as French AZERTY?
They are very close but not identical — the number row and some punctuation differ. The physical shape, the ISO Enter and the letter positions are the same, so this test covers the key positions correctly for both.
Test another keyboard
Every layout below opens with its own board ready to test.
