Step by step
How to use the ukrainian keyboard
- 1The keyboard above is already set to Ukrainian; 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 Ukrainian in a browser
Adding Ukrainian 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 Ukrainian occasionally: spelling a Ukrainian name or place as Ukrainian writes it, searching or filling in a field in Ukrainian, or writing a short message to someone who reads the language. Every key is on screen, the arrangement is the standard one, and when you are finished there is nothing to undo.
Four letters Russian does not have
Ukrainian Cyrillic is not Russian Cyrillic, and the difference is exactly the reason this is a separate layout. Ukrainian has і, ї, є and ґ; Russian has none of them. Ukrainian has no ы, no э and no ъ; Russian uses all three.
і is the one that matters most, because it is extremely common and its Russian near-equivalent и exists in Ukrainian too with a different sound. Київ takes an ї and an и and would be wrong with either in the other's place.
ґ is rarer and politically loaded — suppressed under Soviet orthography, restored in 1990 — and appears in words like ґанок. It has its own key here.
Typing Ukrainian on a Russian keyboard does not work
This is the single most common problem this page solves. A Russian layout has no і, no ї, no є and no ґ, so Ukrainian typed on one comes out with и substituted for і and e for є throughout.
The result reads as a Russified misspelling to any Ukrainian speaker, and it fails a name check against an official record. It is not a small orthographic slip; the letters are different characters.
The layout on this page is the Ukrainian one, with those four letters in their standard positions. If you have been typing Ukrainian on a Russian board and wondering why the spelling looks off, this is why.
Apostrophes, and the one that is not a quotation mark
Ukrainian uses an apostrophe as part of its spelling — in б'є, в'язати, м'ясо — where it separates a consonant from a following iotated vowel. It is not punctuation and it is not optional.
The character that belongs there is the typographic apostrophe ’ (U+2019) rather than the straight ASCII quote, though both are widely used and most systems will match either. Where a form is strict, the typographic one is the correct answer.
As with Russian, the Latin lookalikes are a trap: Ukrainian а е о р с і all have identical-looking Latin partners at different codepoints, and a word containing one will silently fail to match.
On a phone, and on a desktop
On a phone the on-screen layout is the one you tap, and the device's own keyboard is kept from opening over the top of it — which is the failure that makes most virtual keyboards useless on mobile. Text still pastes in from elsewhere as usual.
On a desktop you can use either. The keys on screen are there to be read, and your own keyboard is simultaneously remapped to the Ukrainian layout, matched by physical position so it holds up under any system layout.
Either way the text never leaves the page: no upload, no account, no server to trust. Copy it out when you are done, or download it as a plain .txt file.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not type Ukrainian on a Russian keyboard?
Because і, ї, є and ґ are not on it. Ukrainian typed on a Russian layout comes out with и and e substituted throughout, which is a different spelling.
What is the difference between і and и?
They are separate letters with separate sounds, and Ukrainian uses both. Київ needs the right one in each position.
Is the apostrophe in Ukrainian punctuation?
No, it is part of the spelling — as in м'ясо — and separates a consonant from a following iotated vowel.
How do I get the text out?
Copy it, or download it as a .txt file. Editing keys work normally throughout — Backspace, the arrows and Ctrl or Cmd shortcuts all behave as usual.
Is anything stored between visits?
No. There is no account and no history; the text lives in the page until you close it. Nothing is sent to a server at any point.