Alpha Typing

Type names, state capitals and job titles with no digit in them, and read your KPH, WPM and accuracy.

Type each word and press space after it. The clock starts on your first key. Abe, Ansel; Foy, Percival; Tran, Hedda; Lund, Zuzana; Joss, Xiomara; Rhee, Ignace; Sato, Freya; Imai, Wendeline; Voss, Ines; Hale, Evander; Bray, Ravi; Dunn, Alder; Moss, Thisbe; Pike, Nestor.
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A word is five keystrokes, so 1 WPM is 300 KPH. Change either number.

–This run

–Your best

–Last run

1 minute of typing. Words per minute is correct characters divided by five; accuracy is correct keystrokes out of all keystrokes. Keystrokes per hour (KPH) is correct characters per minute times 60, so 1 WPM is 300 KPH.

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Next step Next: letters and digits in one fieldThe numeric side: digits on the number pad

How it works

This alpha typing test is the letters-only side of data entry: names in file order, state capitals, job titles and mixed records, with no digit in any drill. Read your keystrokes per hour, WPM and accuracy after one minute.

Read the full guide

What alpha means here

Letters only. Alphanumeric fields mix letters and digits; an alpha record is a name, a place or a title. Its keystrokes are letters, capitals, commas, hyphens and apostrophes, so Shift does the work that the top row does on the alphanumeric typing test.

Four kinds of record

Names are in file order, surname first: McAllister, then the given name. Capitals and states pairs all 50 state capitals with their states. Titles pairs a job title with a department. Mixed records put a name, a department and a city in one line. A semicolon ends each record.

  • The semicolon sits on the home row under the right little finger and needs no Shift.

Questions and answers

What is an alpha typing test?

A typing test on records made of letters, with no figures: surnames, given names, towns, job titles. It sits beside numeric entry, which is digits alone, and alphanumeric entry, which mixes the two in one field.

Is alpha typing scored in KPH or WPM?

Both, from one run. KPH is correct characters a minute times 60, and WPM is the same characters divided by five, so 9,000 KPH and 30 WPM are one speed. Read whichever your job posting quotes.

Are the names and places real?

The people are invented. The 50 capitals and their states are real, read from Wikipedia's table of states on 9 October 2026.

All 24 drills

Names in file order 6

  • Names: doubled letters Strike a doubled letter twice with the same finger at an even beat. Barrett has two pairs, and every name here has at least one.
  • Names: hyphenated surnames The hyphen is the key to the right of zero on the top row, the one reach off the letter rows in this drill.
  • Names: long surnames Read a long surname in syllables, not letter by letter. Balasubramanian, 15 letters, is the longest here.
  • Names: look-alike surnames Seven pairs that differ by a letter or two, as Andersen and Anderson do. Each spelling is another person's file.
  • Names: Mc, Mac and O' McAllister takes Shift twice. The apostrophe in O'Dwyer is the key to the right of the semicolon, with no Shift.
  • Names: short surnames File order puts the surname first, then a comma: the key to the right of M.
Show all 24 drills (18 more)

State capitals and states 6

  • Capitals and states: Alabama to Georgia Capital first, then its state. Tallahassee doubles three letters: ll, ss and ee.
  • Capitals and states: Hawaii to Maryland Indianapolis holds the whole of Indiana: type the state, then polis.
  • Capitals and states: Massachusetts to New Jersey Mississippi doubles s twice and p once. Massachusetts doubles s once and t once.
  • Capitals and states: names of two words or more Eighteen pairs in which the capital or the state is more than one word. Salt Lake City is the only capital of three words.
  • Capitals and states: New Mexico to South Carolina Six of the ten states are two words, so the space bar works as hard as Shift.
  • Capitals and states: South Dakota to Wyoming Tennessee doubles three letters: nn, ss and ee. Cheyenne doubles its n before the last e.

Job titles and departments 6

  • Titles: customer service and sales Three-word titles such as Customer Service Agent have no comma inside them: the comma comes only before the department.
  • Titles: finance and payroll Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable differ only in their last word. Read each title to its end before you type.
  • Titles: front office Title, comma, department. Every word starts with a capital, so each hand takes Shift in turn.
  • Titles: people and training Health and Safety keeps a small a in and. It is the only word in the drill without a capital.
  • Titles: public services Singular and plural sit side by side: Library and Libraries, Court and Courts, Election and Elections.
  • Titles: warehouse and shipping Clerk comes up three times. A word you have just typed is the one most easily rushed the next time.

Mixed alpha records 6

  • Mixed records: customer service Two-word departments have a space but no comma inside them: Contact Center, Help Desk.
  • Mixed records: finance The city has nothing to do with the person or the department. Type what is written, not what you expect.
  • Mixed records: front office Four fields a record: surname, given name, department, city. Three commas, then a semicolon.
  • Mixed records: people and training Read one whole record, type it, then look back. Four short fields fit in one glance.
  • Mixed records: public services A record ends at the semicolon. Counting three commas tells you a field has not been dropped.
  • Mixed records: warehouse Seven records, seven cities. Each city is a state capital, spelled as in the capitals drills.

How this list was compiled: Twenty-four drills written for this page. No drill holds a digit; the records, words and characters of each were counted, and each of the four groups holds 1,000 characters or more. The 126 people are invented. Each name was put together from lists of given names and surnames and then tested against the titles of English Wikipedia articles on 2026-10-09, by an exact-title lookup and by a title search compared with accents removed; a name that an article carries is not used. The fifty state capitals and their states are real and were read from the table of states at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States on 2026-10-09; the table gave 50 rows. The notes about doubled letters and two-word names were worked out from those spellings. In the mixed records a capital city stands beside an invented person and a department with no state, and the pairing means nothing. Job titles and departments are ordinary ones chosen for this page; no employer is named. That lists of people are commonly ordered by surname and written surname first, as in O'Leary, Brian, is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collation, and that alphanumeric characters are the letters of the English alphabet and the Arabic numerals is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphanumericals (both read 2026-10-09). On this page alpha means letters with their capitals, commas, hyphens, apostrophes and semicolons. The key positions named in the notes are those of a United States QWERTY keyboard. Speeds follow the tool's own rule: keystrokes per hour is correct characters a minute times 60, and words per minute is the same characters divided by five. No pass mark is given. Licence: own work; state and capital names from Wikipedia (facts, not copied text)

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