Who is the Fastest Typer in the World

Who is the Fastest Typer

Using technology is a must today; You would barely find anyone without a computer or laptop. And when it comes to using a computer, typing is a must. Typing isn’t just for work; you need it daily for various other purposes. Typing, without a doubt, is a tiring activity. But once you learn it, things get easier!

Are you still among those people who use two fingers and constantly stare down at the keyboard as you type? While we remain at this stage, others have become professionals at typing and made world records as the fastest typers in the world. Many have mastered the art of touch typing and gone to heights in setting world records. 

How fast can you type? Where do you stand against the fastest typer in the world? Who is the fastest typer in the world?  This article will cover every little detail you need to know!

Let’s not keep you waiting.

What is the Average Typing Speed?

The average typing speed is the minimum or average rate that an ordinary person can type at.

What is the typing speed of an average person? How fast can they type?

As per the stats, the average typing speed is somewhere between 38 to 40 words per minute. The average word per minute speed is 41.5 words/minute. Talking about the typing technique, the average speed when using the hunt and peck way is 27 words per minute.

Research results have shown that the typing speed also varies based on gender.

Girls or Boys; Who Can Type Faster?

The average typing speed for girls and boys tends to vary as well. While girls practice typing much more often than boys, the results show that boys have better typing speed than the former. Boys can type around 44 words per minute, while girls stay at 37 words per minute. It sounds a little surprising because girls have a lower typing speed than boys despite more practice.

Why Do You Need Fast Typing?

Whether you’re working for your job or typing your assignment, you would need a fast typing speed to get the work done quickly. If you can type fast, you will significantly save a lot of your time. Fast typing is always a plus when doing assignments. With less time to spend typing, you can free your time for other essential tasks. 

Your average typing speed is also one of the essential things that employers see on your resume. If they find you have a good typing speed, it may be counted as one of your plus points! And maybe just enough to get you suitable employment of job.

Typist Vs. Typer: Which is the Correct One?

We want to take you through the world of typing and acquaint you with the fastest typers worldwide, but oh wait! Before we head there, we want you to know the correct word for the job; typist or typer! 

From a technical viewpoint, typer is a better option commonly used in conversions to describe someone who types. While both terms are correct and interchangeable, we tend to stick with the one more convenient to use in conversations. Since typing isn’t an ancient phenomenon, it may make its way through within no time, considering our rapidly evolving world. It may just be a few years to when the word “typer” becomes formally added to our dictionaries.

Who is the Fastest Typer in the World; Typing World Records

There is no “one” record for the fastest typer in the world because different people set different world records in the typing field based on multiple aspects. Some people are experts in typing in various languages. In contrast, others have established records of the fastest typing in ways like hands-free typing, touch typing, and typewriting.

We have compiled a comprehensive list covering all the typing world records in these fields.

World's First Official Typing Speed Contest Winner

Rose L. Fritz, at only 17 years of age, with a typing speed of 82 words/minute, won the first-speed typing contest in the world held in 1906 in Chicago.

The young lady gained popularity as the world’s first widely-recognized typist. Her fame wasn’t limited; instead traveled so far as to reach the Prince of Wales.

The Prince of Wales wanted to see Rose typing on her arrival in London. In as little as 60 seconds, she surprised everyone by typing 130 words perfectly, without any mistakes and with proper punctuation. It seems to be a pretty impressive score considering typewriters’ difficulty compared to today’s keyboards. 

The prince, impressed by Rose L. Fritz’s achievement, as her to sign it so he could save it as a souvenir. With a typing speed of 82 words/minute, Rose won the title of the fastest typist at the time. Her score remained the highest for around four years, after which H.O. Blaisdell beat it. Yet, she had remained a legend in her time, truly appreciated for her typing skill!

Fastest Typing with Dvorak/PC Keyboard in English

Barbara Blackburn is considered the world’s fastest typist of the English language. She had reached the highest speed of 216 words per minute using a Dvorak keyboard, a special keyboard meant to reduce the finger’s motion. Moreover, what comes as a surprise is that even her typing speed stayed between 150 to 170wpm. While the record was set in 2005, no one has been able to beat it ever since. 

Her record became so popular in the US that she even showed her skills off on the Letterman show; to more than 17 million viewers!

Fastest Typing with IBM Electric Typewriter

Before the arrival of modern mobile phones and computers, people used to type with electronic and manual typewriters that had a similar keyboard to today’s QWERTY keyboard. The fastest type of the English language using an IBM electric typewriter was Stella Pajunas, who set the record in 1946. She had achieved the highest typing speed by reaching 216 words per minute. With her high typing speed, it became hard for people’s eyes even to count her keystrokes as she typed!

Highest Average Words Per Minute Achieved in 1 Hour Using Typewriter

Looking back into history, the 20th century was significantly loaded with typing competitions, especially in the US, primarily because of the growing fields of personal assistance and typewriting, where capable typists were needed. Albert Tangora, in 1923 set the record of making 147 wpm over 1 hour using a manual typewriter, meaning he typed 8,000 words in an hour!

World's Fastest Typing in Different Languages

Russia has loaded us with many things related to typing, one being the fastest-ever multi-linguists known to the world. Michale Shestov spoke and typed around 27 different languages. He learned this while serving as the Russian Army clerk, where he typed for almost 8 hours daily. Within 5 minutes, he was able to type 801 words, averaging 160 wpm.

The Fastest Court Record in the World

Much like other typing world records, Mark Kinlingsbury is known to be the fastest court reporter in the world with a stenotype machine. What score do you think he could achieve with this little machine? Incredibly enough, he set the highest record for achieving 360 wpm with an accuracy as high as 97%. While the steno-typist is known to use a speed machine with shorthand writing, the score is still pretty impressive.

World Record for Typing A-Z Alphabet

Mohd. Khursheed Hussain, in 2012, achieved the world record for typing the English alphabet A to Z with spaces within a timeframe of as little as 3.43 seconds. While it may sound a bit funny, this score made its way to the Guinness Book of World records page.

The Fastest Touch Screen Typist

Marcel Fernandes Filho from Brazil holds the title of fastest texter

If you have a smartphone, you’d have an idea of how tricky and challenging texting can sometimes be, even though smartphones are designed for ease. Ironic, right? You’ll find it interesting that the world’s fastest touch-screen typist exists. Marcel Fernandes Filho from Brazil was known for typing a predetermined 25-word message in just 17 seconds with the Flesky keyboard app on iPhone. The message was, “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality, they seldom attack a human”.

He had typed with the perfect punctuation, spelling, and capitalization, breaking the earlier record of typing the exact text in 18.44 seconds.

World Fastest Typing Record with the Old-School Mobile Phone

We once had those clunky and hard-button phones before smartphones took over. Even that isn’t left out when we talk about the fastest typing records. Yousef Ahmed Abdul Saboor set the world record for typing the most words with this old-school mobile phone, typing a 160-character message in 29.43 seconds. Indeed some impressive typing power!

World Record for Fastest Typing on Phone QWERTY Keyboard

The thing with a regular keyboard is that most find it hard to use; what do you have to say about the mobile keyboard then? Well, a world record exists for that too! Ms Grace Pak (USA) is popularly known for putting a 264-character message on her phone in as little as 56.5 seconds! Yes, including punctuation. Would you believe that?

With so many typing competitions worldwide on different software, monitoring and tracking all of them for the records becomes hard. Yet, some have been recorded. The Ultimate Typing Championship was an online competition where Sean Wrona had reached a high typing speed of 256 wpm, maintaining a 175 wpm speed for about 50 minutes. This record, therefore, broke Blackburn’s record but isn’t yet recognized officially by Guinness. Guilherme Sandrini is another typist with a high score of 241 wpm in this competition.

World Record for Hands-Free Typing

A world record for hands-free typing also exists! Hard to believe, right? Hank Torres from the US holds the world record for hands-free typing. He made it to a speed of 83.09 seconds at the conference of the Assistive Technology Industry Association in Orlando. Hank set this record using facial motion-capture technology since he suffered paralysis of all limbs from a hang-gliding accident.

Uncommon World Records for Typing

Most people are surprised to hear that such unusual and weird typing records exist; most aren’t ready to believe it. Yet, many worldwide have set typing world records in some of the most unconventional ways known to humankind! We hope you have fun reading through these records. Weird yet amazing!

1. Fastest Texting while Spinning Head

A breakdancer has a lot of thrill and activity in their life. Why not do the typing work alongside work? Benedikt Mordstein from Germany had set the record for typing a message in around just 63.664 seconds while his head rotated with his signature dancing moves. It still remains a mystery for many how he was able to type this well and fast with his head spinning!

2. Most Alphabetical Letters Typed with Feet in a Minute

Can feet use for any other purpose than walking? You may be surprised to hear that people also use their feet for typing, or at least some have! In 2010, Lie Wufei from China typed the alphabet 251 times in a minute with her toes. Weird right? We know! That’s why we kept this record on the list of uncommon typing world records!

3. World's Fastest Typing With Nose

Sometimes, what do you do when you’re out of hands to type? Use the nose; yes! Surprisingly, as weird as this sounds, Mr Vinod Kumar Chaudhary set the world record of typing 103 characters in just around 43 seconds using his nose, and this was just last year! He truly has an excellent cross-eye vision to date! Well, he isn’t the only good nose typist out there. Neeta, an Indian woman, typed 130 words in just 90 seconds using her nose.

How Fast are You?

After looking at these fantastic world records and the lengths people have reached to set them, we’re sure you’re questioning yourself about where you stand. We’re pretty sure you’re already impressed by these scores. After all, what’s there not to be impressed about? 

Have you ever wondered about your typing speed? Ever thought about how fast you can type? If that question has stricken you even once, the typing speed test is here to help. You can test your typing speed easily using a typing test where you have to type words given within 60 seconds. Your typing speed and accuracy will then be calculated automatically. This typing test tool is free to use and accessible online. And the best thing is that it isn’t just for checking your speed; you can also use this tool to practice and improve your typing speed.

Beyond the Average Typing Scores

Well, practice is always the key to perfection, typing being no different. If you want to cross the average typing speed and become a professional in typing, make sure to do a lot of practice. Practice, practice, practice, and keep going! The results of activity analysis show that those who are fast typers, beyond the average, practice three times more and longer than people with an average or below the average speed of typing.

What's the Best Time to Start Learning Typing?

In short, we can say; that the earlier you do, the better it is. A good typing speed is always helpful, whether it’s your job, work, school, or college assignments. As far as we know, fast typing has never hurt anybody! Good typing skills are advantageous to students who can do their work quicker and more conveniently. Once they join a job, they’re again likely to reap the benefits of a good typing speed. Research data shows that 65% of people learning faster touch typing are under 24. So, the best time to learn typing is earlier because this can benefit you in the years ahead. Improving your typing skills is essential for everyone, and starting from a tender age is best. Hence, you have a longer time to practice.

The Verdict

You have seen that there is no “one” person who has set the record for the highest typing speed in the world. Instead, there is a whole list of people based on different typing aspects and categories. We hope you enjoyed reading through our list of the fastest typists in the world. 

If you think it is impossible to beat this score, we don’t want you to feel disappointed just yet. You can always practice and practice to get better at typing. The more you practice, the better you will get, and more chances to beat the world record.

Improving your typing speed is much like any other activity where getting better requires consistency and practice. For your ease, make sure to bring comfortable gear, like a suitable keyboard for typing.