Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 16 Deluxe (PC)

The program is really easy to install and use, and the program is easy to follow.

The games are a good feature, and provide a more entertaining way to learn.

I am very pleased I purchased this product and am continuing to use it to improve my typing skills.


Too American!   January 24, 2007
Trainee Typist (Birmingham, England)
23 out of 26 found this review helpful

I've been using the non-deluxe version of MB for a couple of weeks now, and I'm making good progress with my touch-typing - at least as far as the ordinary letter keys go. However, there are a few problems with the program. Firstly, it's American, so it uses American spellings, and there is no way to change this. Secondly, and probably more seriously, American keyboards are NOT identical to British keyboards - the QWERTY layout is the same, of course, but when it comes to the position of non-alphabetic characters like $, @, , # etc, they are in different places - so Mavis Beacon's directions actually become misleading. Again, there's no way to change this. Having said all this, learning to touch-type is definitely a worthwhile endeavour, so good luck with it!


It's okay but could be better-designed   July 31, 2007
Wayne Redhart (West Midlands, UK)
23 out of 28 found this review helpful

(Okayh, I've been practisign hard for a number oif weeks now so I'm going to test myself out by doing this as 'live' run to see how I'm doingso fqar.)

This is a pretty resasonabel prgoramme, with a decent range of optkons. NOt logn ago my tuyping skillls were prety non=existant and writing an onlone review could be an extremely slow process- taking uip ti hapf an hour *per setencne that is!). tHEse dyas I can type quite accjrately wihtout having to spend all of my tome lopking dowmn at my hands adn I can tyep at arounds80 worsd=per=minute. aS OTHER REVIEWRS HAVE POUNTED OUT, THE aMERICNA KEYBOARDS GHAVE DSIFFERENY PUNCTUATIOAN TO brITISG MODELS SO THE MOTRE ADVANCED EXERCXISES ARE PRETY USFELESS. aLSO, i FELT PPRESSSURED BYU SOME OF THE TIME-LIMITDS SO SOMETIMSE i TEDN TO RUSH TOOO MUCH. OH BUGGEWR THE CAPS LOCLK IS ONM

Okay, I've slowed down a little now, but my computer tells me that I averaged about 90 words-per-minute there- a new personal best! Perhaps I need to work on my accuracy a little more, but I'm definitely getting faster. As my piano teacher used to tell me- concentrate on achieving speed before accuracy. Or was it the other way round? Anyway, it was something to do with speed and accuracy...


Disappointed   January 29, 2007
Mrs. J. Hillman (Scotland)
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

I've had no end of problems with this software.
I learnt to touch type with Mavis Beacon 15 years ago. This time I wanted to learn the numbers and symbols. Everytime I have tried this version of Mavis Beacon it has crashed. I contacted the software company whose name appears on the box. I went throught their FAQ's and did what was suggested. I filled in a form online, I got an automated email to say they would deal with my problem in due course. 12 days later I have heard nothing.