Step by step
How to use the macedonian keyboard
- 1The keyboard above is already set to Macedonian; you can switch language from the list if you need another.
- 2Click the keys on screen, or just type — your own keyboard is remapped to the layout shown.
- 3Use Shift for the second layer, which carries the rest of the characters.
- 4Copy the text when you are done, or download it as a .txt file.
Why type Macedonian in a browser
Adding Macedonian to an operating system is a settings-menu expedition that ends in a keyboard you cannot see: the letters are not printed on your keys, so you are typing blind in a script you may have no muscle memory for, and you have changed a system-wide setting to write one line.
The usual workaround is worse — hunting characters in a character-map utility and pasting them one at a time, or copying words out of search results and hoping the spelling survived the trip.
A visible keyboard solves the specific problem of writing Macedonian occasionally: typing a Macedonian name or place correctly, filling in a field or searching in Macedonian, or writing a short message in the language. Every key is on screen, the arrangement is the standard one, and when you are finished there is nothing to undo.
The letters that make it Macedonian
Macedonian Cyrillic has five letters that mark it out: ѓ and ќ, its own palatals; ѕ, which writes the dz sound; and љ and њ, the palatal l and n it shares with Serbian. Ѓорѓи and Скопје are the kind of words that need them.
It also does without several letters Russian has. There is no я and no ю — Macedonian writes ја and ју as two letters — and no ы, no э and no ъ. The alphabet is a different set, not a subset.
ј is a full letter of the alphabet rather than a semivowel borrowed from Latin, and it is used constantly. This is the feature that makes written Macedonian look immediately unlike Russian.
Close to Serbian and Bulgarian, and not the same
Macedonian, Serbian and Bulgarian are all written in Cyrillic and all different on the keyboard. Serbian shares љ њ ѕ but has ђ and ћ where Macedonian has ѓ and ќ. Bulgarian keeps я ю ъ, which Macedonian does not have at all.
Typing Macedonian on any of the neighbouring layouts therefore misses letters, and the substitutions a typist makes to get around it are visible as mistakes rather than variants.
This layout is the Macedonian one. If a letter is not where you expect it and you learned to type on a Serbian board, that is the reason.
Latin transcription and what gets lost
Macedonian is sometimes written in Latin script, using the Gaj-style alphabet familiar from the region — with č, š, ž, ǵ and ḱ. It is common in casual writing, in URLs and where a system cannot take Cyrillic.
The transcription is not lossless in practice, because the diacritics are often dropped: gj for ѓ, kj for ќ, dz for ѕ. A name written that way can transcribe back several ways, which is how one person ends up spelled three ways across three documents.
Cyrillic avoids that entirely, and it is what official records and Macedonian-language systems use. This board produces Unicode Cyrillic that pastes anywhere.
Your own keyboard, remapped
Clicking keys is fine for a name and tedious for a paragraph, so the keyboard already in front of you is remapped while you type. Press the key where a Macedonian letter sits on the picture and that letter is what appears, with the small grey label on each key telling you which of yours produces it.
The mapping follows the physical position of the key rather than the letter printed on it, so it lands correctly even if you already run AZERTY or Dvorak underneath. Space, Enter, Backspace and the arrow keys are left alone, and Ctrl and Cmd shortcuts pass straight through, so copy and paste keep working.
Nothing is sent anywhere. The layout is a few kilobytes of data in the page and every keystroke is handled in your browser — no request, no account, no history. That matters more than it sounds, because what people type in a script they cannot otherwise type is usually a name, an address or a message.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the Russian keyboard?
Macedonian has ѓ ќ ѕ љ њ, which Russian lacks, and no я ю ы э ъ, which Russian has. The alphabets are genuinely different sets.
Can I use a Serbian layout instead?
Not accurately. Serbian has ђ and ћ where Macedonian has ѓ and ќ, so some letters are simply missing.
Is ј a real letter?
Yes, a full member of the Macedonian alphabet, used constantly — as in Скопје.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The layout is data in the page and every keystroke is handled in your browser. There is no request to a server, no account and no history.
Do I have to click the keys?
No. Your own keyboard is remapped to the layout shown, matched by physical key position, so it works even on a non-QWERTY system. A checkbox turns it off.