The Chromebook layout
A Chromebook keyboard differs from a Windows laptop in a few places, and the picture follows a common US Chromebook layout:
- Search is where Caps Lock usually is. Google calls it the Search or Launcher key; it opens search and your apps. Browsers report it as the left Meta key, the code a Windows key sends on a PC.
- The top row holds action keys, not F1 to F12: Back, Refresh, Full screen, Overview, brightness down and up, mute, volume down and up, then the lock or power key. ChromeOS reports them with their own codes (BrowserBack, BrowserRefresh, ZoomToggle, ShowAllWindows, BrightnessDown, AudioVolumeMute and so on, the names Chromium uses), and the test lights each one by that code.
- No Windows key, no Fn key and no Delete, Home or End. The bottom row is Ctrl, Alt, the space bar, Alt and Ctrl, with half-height arrows in an inverted T.
The lock key is drawn dashed and left out of the score, because ChromeOS handles it and a page never sees it.
Testing the top row
Press each top-row key once. Some of them also do their job: brightness and volume change, Full screen enlarges the window, and Back may take the tab to the previous page. That’s a pass, not a fault. Two ways to keep the test on screen:
- Press Capture system keys before you start. In full screen it asks the browser to pass keys to the page first.
- Hold Search while you press each top-row key. Google’s own shortcut list gives Search (or Launcher) plus a top-row key for the function keys, and the test counts a key as tested whether it sends its action or its F-key. Back is F1, Refresh F2, and so on along the row.
If the Chromebook’s keyboard settings treat top-row keys as function keys, the row sends F1 onward without Search and still lights up here.
When a key doesn’t light up
- A letter or number key never lights: press it a few times from different angles. A key that only works when pressed hard, or only on one edge, is a worn or dirty switch. Note it, along with any others, before you contact the maker or the school’s IT desk.
- A key types twice: look at the chatter panel under the keyboard. A double press with only a few milliseconds between them is the switch bouncing, not your finger.
- Only some top-row keys light: your model’s row may differ from the picture. Keys that the picture doesn’t have show up under Other keys detected rather than as failures.
- Nothing lights at all: click once on the page so it has the focus. If the keys still do nothing here but type in other apps, reload the page and try again before suspecting the keyboard.
Caps Lock has no key of its own: Google lists Alt + Search, Alt + Launcher, or Fn + Quick Insert to turn it on or off (as of October 2026). To test a separate USB or Bluetooth keyboard plugged into the Chromebook, use the laptop or full-size layout instead.
What this layout leaves out
The keyboard above has 73 keys, and the score counts 72 of them (the dashed keys don’t reach the browser). The tester’s full-size layout has 104. These are the ones this layout doesn’t draw; if you press one through an Fn combination, it appears under “Other keys detected” instead of lighting up the picture.
- Function keys: F10, F11, F12
- System keys: Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause
- Navigation keys: Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End, Page Down
- Number pad: all 17 keys
- Other keys: Caps Lock, Right Win, Menu